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LAFAYETTE at Fordham, Noon: It's Lafayette's first game in 10 days. Can the Leopards top their former leaguemates from the Bronx? Not out of the question. The Rams, who lost in double overtime to Holy Cross earlier this season, are 3-8 and riding a two-game losing streak. Most of those losses have come on the road, though. Fordham has only played twice (both losses) thus far in cozy (the polite way of saying antiquated) Rose Hill Gym.

Fordham does have a win at Virginia. And it also has 6-2 senior guard Jermaine Anderson. If Lafayette is to win this one, somebody will need to make sure to keep a hand in Anderson's face. The Rams' leading scorer (16.3 ppg) is a 50-percent shooter from the field so far this season. That is impressive for a guard, more so when you realize more than half of his 120 shots have come from 3-point range, where he has been just as deadly as he is inside the arc (33-66). And don't foul the guy, he is 26-29 (89.7 percent) from the line.

Sophomore Bryant Dunston (6-8), last season's Atlantic 10 rookie of the year, will pose a challenge inside for the Leopards, who are deep at the guard spots but less so up front. Dunston is averaging 15.6 points, 7.1 rebounds and just under 3 blocks per game.
Lafayette notes | Fordham Web site | USA Today matchup | Fordham radio

Brown at ARMY 1 p.m.: Jim Crews insists Army is getting better. We were ready to believe that when the Black Knights won at Columbia. Since then, though, they have lost three straight to mediocre DI competition (they do have a win over D3 NY Maritime in that stretch), leaving us less convinced.

A win over 2-8 Brown would be a positive sign. A loss would probably confirm our suspicion that the Columbia game was a fluke. One interesting note: although Brown has been pretty pathetic this season, both their wins have come on the road.

In fairness to Army, they have been without the services of sophomore guard Jarell Brown the last three games. Brown, who has been sidelined with an unspecified stress fracture, was averaging a team-best 13.9 ppg before being shelved. He will not play today. No word on when he might return.
Army notes (pdf) | Brown notes | USA Today matchup | Gametracker

The Citadel at NAVY 3 p.m.: After the Mids beat Division III Susquehanna Thursday night, Billy Lange told Bill Wagner of the Annapolis Capital, "We always have a postgame prayer and Leonard Green said 'Thank you Lord for getting us back to 5-5."

Now we are pretty sure of two things: 1) God is way too busy with wars, famines and natural disasters to be worrying about who wins a basketball game (besides, wouldn't he side with the David-like Lutheran school against the Goliath from a military academy?) and 2) If Navy needs divine intervention to be at .500 playing an early season schedule that included two D3s, Morgan State, Howard and Brown, then Lange is in the wrong business.

Navy should not need any external help against the Citadel. Yes, the Bulldogs are 6-5. But take a look at the wins. Army (by only 2 points) and Stetson (0-10) are the only DI teams they have beaten. The other wins: Asbury (an NAIA Christian school), Florida Christian, Atlanta Christian (so much for God deciding games, eh?) and Webber International (an NAIA business school).

One Navy note: The Mids have announced junior guard David Rhoiney will undergo reconstructive surgery on his left thumb next week and will miss the remainder of the basketball season. That will have no impact on the Mids rotation. Rhoiney has played in only three games, though he did get a start in the win over Brown.

Rhoiney was the backup at the point last season behind Corey Johnson, who is also out indefinitely with a knee injury. Rhoiney is the second player Lange has lost this week. Lange confirmed earlier this week that 6-8 freshman forward John Bailey has left the team. That appears to leave Navy with 13 healthy bodies, though you never know who the Mids might have stashed on their jayvee squad.
Navy notes (pdf) | Citadel notes | USA Today matchup | Gametracker
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It was a mixed afternoon Friday for Patriot League teams.

In Boston, Holy Cross snapped a three-game losing streak by beating a Jose Juan Barea-less Northeastern. Lehigh was not as fortunate, losing at home to Towson in what can only be categorized as a bad loss.

Holy Cross 59, Northeastern 44 -- It was vintage Holy Cross basketball at Northeastern's Solomon Court, where the Crusaders held Northeastern to 11 first half points en route to a 15-point win.

Scanning the HC game notes and media guide, there is no way of telling if that was a record, but it had to be close. The Crusaders held Northeastern to 4-24 (16.7 percent) shooting in the first half, building a 28-11 lead. Northeastern never got closer the 9 the rest of the way.

According to Jen Toland of the Telegram & Gazette, the defensive shutdown fulfilled a promise the team made to coach Ralph Willard after an ugly 33-point loss at George Mason, a game in which the Patriots shot 55 percent from the field.

How tough was HC's defense? Marvin Pave, a correspondent for the Boston Globe points out:

Midway through the first half, during a timeout at Solomon Court, there was a contest during which a person from the crowd made a layup and a free throw.

That total of 3 points was 1 more than the Huskies had scored to that juncture (it was 15-2, Crusaders). . .

Yes, Northeastern was without Barea, the nation's leader in assists (9.1 per game) who also ranks fourth in scoring (22.8 ppg). Barea has been suffering from tendonitis in his knees and sat this one out, hoping to be halthier for the Huskies' Colonial Athletic Conference matchup Monday with George Mason. And the Huskies coach, Ron Everhart, also sat this one out after being kicked out of Tuesday's loss to Wright State. Under CAA rules an ejection brings an automatic one-game suspension.

But for Holy Cross, that hardly matters. It was HC's fifth game in 11 days. In addition to fatigue, the Crusaders have had their share of health problems all season. In fact, Keith Simmons, who has battled cramping problems all season, actually spent the morning in a hospital getting intravenous fluids before coming out and leading all scorers with 15 points.

The IV approach allowed Simmons to play 27 minutes yesterday. The IV's are being used to help Simmons get fully hydrated without the bloating that comes with drinking a lot of fluids.

Kevin Hamilton added 13, including a pair of key jumpers during a 10-3 spurt that came after Northeastern cut HC's lead to 40-31 with 11:30 to play.

Box score

Boston Herald

Towson 69, Lehigh 66 -- Towson didn't exactly shoot the lights out against the Mountain Hawks, but a 46 percent effort on the road was enough to do the trick against offensively challenged Lehigh, which shot 8-34 (23.5 percent) in the first half. That allowed Towson to build an 11-point lead, 33-22, at the break, which proved a big enough margin to hold up when Lehigh heated up a little after the break.

LaSalle transfer Gary Neal, playing in his thrid game for the Tigers, led Towson with 19 points.

Jose Olivero led all scorers with 24 points on 8-16 shooting.

Towson improved to 4-6 with the win. Lehigh, which saw a modest 4-game home win streak end, is now 5-8.

Box score

Express-Times

Morning Call

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Towson at LEHIGH 1 p.m.: The 3-6 Tigers come into Stabler Arena riding a four-game losing streak after an 86-52 shellacking at the hands of Syracuse. Included in that losing streak is a 74-70 loss at American.

Gary Neal, a 6-4 LaSalle transfer who became eligible at the end of the first semester, has averaged 23.5 ppg for Towson. Senior forward Lawrence Hamm (6-6) averages 17.1 points and a team-high 8.3 rebounds.
Lehigh notes | Towson notes | USA Today matchup | Towson radio

HOLY CROSS at Northeastern 3 p.m.: Somebody's losing streak ends this afternoon in Boston. Northeastern comes in having lost two straight to fall to 6-3 on the year. The Crusaders are 5-7 after losing their last three.

The Huskies are led by Jose Juan Barea, a Mid-Major All-America pick last season. Barea averages 22.8 points and a nation-leading 9.1 assists per game.

Barea is not the only Northeastern standout. Shawn James, the America East Rookie of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year last season, is a shot blocking machine. James blocked eight shots in Northeastern's last game, a loss to Wright State. The 6-9 sophomore, who had 10 blocks in a game against Cal State Northridge earlier this season, leads the nation in blocks (6.3 per game) and has already shattered Reggie Lewis' school record for blocked shots. In 29 collegiate games he has rejected 193 shots. James also averages 12 points and a team-best 6 rebounds per game.
HC notes | Northeastern notes | USA Today matchup | Northeastern radio | HC radio
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(Originally posted post game around 1:30 a.m., updated at 8:14 a.m.)

Turnovers, foul trouble and a hot-shooting Santa Clara team were more than Bucknell could overcome in the final of the Cable Car Classic, falling to the host Broncos 77-68.

Santa Clara (7-5) took control of the game with a 14-0 run midway through the first half, building a 37-26 halftime lead. Bucknell never got closer than 5 in the second half.

The Broncos scorched Bucknell's vaunted defense, shooting 55 percent from the field, the best showing by any Bucknell opponent all season. Villanova, which shot 50 percent, is the only other team to shoot better than 44 percent against the Bison.

Bucknell with 16 turnovers, six by point guard Abe Badmus.

Chris McNaughton and Kevin Bettencourt each had 17 for Bucknell. McNaughton was 6-9 from the field, but played only 23 minutes due to foul trouble. Darren Mastropaolo was also limited to 25 minutes due to foul trouble and Donald Brown fouled out in 19 minutes of action. Charles Lee also in double figures with 15 for Bucknell.

Bucknell, which has been shooting over 50 percent on the season, shot just 43 percent from the field.

Santa Clara's Travis Niesen, who was named the tournament MVP, led all scorers with 24. Calvin Johnson added 16 before fouling out with 2 minutes to play. Mitch Henke (13) and Brody Angley (11) also in double figures for the Broncos.

Hoop Time's West Coast correspondent. former Bucknell center Tom Welch, filed this report by e-mail:

Foul trouble was really the least of it though - it really impacted big men on both sides - and at the worse it was a wash because the game was not won or lost on the inside (although an extra ten minutes from Chris McNaughton would have been nice). The big problem with the foul situation was the fouls that were expected but not called on the guards. Bucknell was never able to adjust to the fact that there would be (hard) contact on every shot. As a result, they stopped taking the ball to the basket. BU's entire backcourt took 13 2-pointers versus 24 3-pointers. And Santa Clara was not packing in their defense.

Part of the reason that BU's turnovers were up was because the defense for Santa Clara did not need to help during penetration and BU was trying to force passes when they just should have shot it. It looked like the Bison had learned their lesson at the end of the first half (with McNaughton out). They took the ball strong to the basket and got some good looks (some that didn't drop), but they never followed through. And I think the lack of penetration resulted in the lack of production outside of Chris, Kevin Bettencourt and Charles Lee - none of the other guys ever had easy looks.

Regardless of the above, Santa Clara hit some big shots and BU missed some big shots.

The truth is that this was not a game where Bucknell should have needed big shots.

The loss was the second of the season for Bucknell (9-2), their first on the road, and snapped a four-game win streak.

Box score

InsideBayArea.com

San Francisco Chronicle

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(Originally posted Thursday, 10:30 p.m., updated at 8:11 a.m.)

Vermont 72, American 62 -- Another tale of two halves for AU, which fell behind by 22 in the first half and could never catch up.

This one was decided when Vermont went on a 20-0 run midway through the first half, holding the Eagles scoreless for almost 10 minutes. 20-0 run midway through the first half. The Catamounts shot 77 percent from the floor in the first half while AU shot only 23 percent before the break.

After trailing 38-16 at the break, American tried to make a game of it in the second half. AU scored 46 points in the second half, but could get no closer than 68-59 with 1:37 to go.

Ten UVM players got into the scoring column, led by Kyle Cieplicki's career-high 16 points. The Vermont bench outscored AU's reserves 32-10.

Arvidas Eitutavicius led AU with 20 points. Andre Ingram added 16, 14 after the break, but hit just 5 of 17 field goal attempts.

Paulius Joneliunas started, with Brayden Billbe, who started the first 10 games, averaging just under 10 points while leading the team in rebounds (5.2 rpg), relegated to the bench.

The two big men combined for 6 points and 5 rebounds in 37 minutes of playing time.

Box score

Burlington Free Press

Washington Post

Navy 86, Susquehanna University 54 -- Clif Colbert led Navy with 19 points. Greg Spink and Kaleo Kina each added 11 and Carlton Baldwin chipped in with 10 off the bench as Navy romped past their Division III guests.

Box score

AP story

The Daily Item

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Bill Wagner at the Annapolis Capital does a good job covering the Naval Academy Midshipmen, but because the paper's Web site does not update until after noon, we often don't get to link to his game stories when we update in the mornings.

This afternoon Wagner checked in with a progress report on the Mids that covers everything from Billy Lange's rotation, Corey Johnson's knee, Kaleo Kina's turnovers and Greg Sprink's work habits.

Wagner also had this tidbit on one of the Mids freshman big men:

Meanwhile, Lange confirmed that freshman forward John Bailey has left the team. The 6-foot-8, 221-pound product of Blacksburg, Va., had played in five of nine games and averaged 2.8 minutes.

Other clicks of interest:

The Peoria Journal Star has a story today on Lehigh recruit Paul Bayer, a 3.9 student who is 6-5 and shoots the three.

Meanwhile, in Bethlehem, Andre Williams of the Morning Call argues Lehigh's cup is half full.

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BUCKNELL vs. Santa Clara 11 p.m.:Santa Clara may well be the biggest team Bucknell faces all season. The Broncos starting frontcourt goes 6-7, 6-11, 6-7, with a 6-8 kid and a 6-9 kid as two of the first three off the bench. There's another 6-11 guy on the bench (and a 7-foot transfer who is sitting out this season). The Broncs' leader is Travis Niesen, a 6-7 senior forward who is averaging 19.9 points and 7.2 rebounds. In the first round of the tournament, Niesen went off for 23 points and 14 rebounds against UC-Riverside.

Burley center John Bryant is a handful and a half. The 6-11, 329-pound freshman is averaging over 8 rebounds per game after grabbing 17 against UC-Riverside. For good measure he tossed in 16 points in that win and blocked 6 shots. It will be interesting to see if he is quick and mobile enough to defend Bucknell's Chris McNaughton, who has added a nice step-away-from-the-basket-for-the-short-jumper wrinkle to his game this season.

The other frontcourt starter, 6-7 sophomore Mitch Henke is averaging 10.7 points and 5.9 rebounds.

This will be a real test for the Bison. The Broncos have only been shooting 40 percent from the field as a team, but they have held foes to 37 percent and they have been outrebounding opponents by three per game.

The Broncos are 6-4 overall, 4-1 at home, but it is tough to gauge them by their record/schedule. So far they have beaten the teams they should and lost to the ones you'd expect they would. The six wins came over teams with a combined record of 16-37, including an NAIA and a D-II, both of which have losing records. The only win over a team with an above .500 record was at home over Pacific (6-4). The losses came against teams with a combined record of 35-6, including 9-1 Montana, 7-2 North Carolina and 9-3 Mississippi State.
Bucknell notes | Santa Clara notes | USA Today matchup |Bucknell Radio

AMERICAN at Vermont 7 p.m.: This is not last year's Vermont team. There is no Tom Brennan running the show, no Taylor Coppenrath or T.J. Sorrentine. But the Catamounts are still a pretty good team, especially in Patrick Gym, where their only loss in the last 18 home games was early this season against No. 20 Nevada. That setback came in a season-opening three-game losing streak. Since then UVM has won four of six, the losses coming against a strong Iona team and Pittsburgh of the Big East. Junior Martin Klimes (15.6 ppg) is the only starter back from last season for Vermont. Freshman point guard Mike Trimboli is ranked third in the nation in assists, averaging 7.1 per game.
AU notes | UVM notes | USA Today matchup | Live Stats | UVM radio | AU radio

Susquehanna at NAVY 7:30 p.m.:Frank Marcinek's Crusaders are a young, 2-7, Division 3 team with a roster filled with freshmen and sophomores. Center Matt Effler is the only senior on the team. He is also the only guy taller than 6-5.
Navy notes (pdf) | Susquehanna Web site | USA Today matchup | Gametracker | Susquehanna radio
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(Originally posted 1:14 a.m., updated at 7:57 a.m.)

Bison advance to the final of the Cable Car Classic, where they will face host Santa Clara, 63-61 winners over U.C.-Riverside in the other first round game.

Hoop Time correspondent Tom Welch "back in the day."

Hoop Time correspondent Tom Welch, a former Bucknell center (1993-97), was at the game and filed this report:

Spent the hour long drive home trying to decide between sloppy or lazy as my description of the Bucknell side of things tonight. Reality is, it was neither. Or more correctly, not exclusively either. Credit the Terriers' concerted effort to shut down Kevin Bettencourt for completely negating Bucknell's ability to run their motion offense. I can not remember the last time I have seen a "box and one" in a college game, and while they did not run it all the time, the fact that they did at all showed their strategy. Boston's desire to "take the head off the beast" by removing Kevin from the picture offensively was a very good coaching move except for one problem: Charles Lee was scheduled to play that role tonight.

Granted, this is a bet that I would probably have taken if I were in Boston U's position. You can't stop Chris McNaughton (they couldn't), you can't out execute them (they couldn't), you can't out quick them (you get the picture), so you try to change them. And putting the onus on Charles seemed to be the right thing to do - he has appeared to be the most up and down of the big three so far this year. But you could not tell tonight.

Even with the Terrier's ability to keep Kevin, and to a lesser part, Abe Badmus, out of the motion game, all Bucknell had to out-execute them with their set plays. But given some erratic play by some usual contributors, it took coach a while to configure a substitution pattern that allowed him to keep the execution focused guys on the floor a majority of the time. The times he did looked like a clinic. Bucknell got a quality shot every time they ran a set (particularly the high 1-4 with an on-ball screen). And a fair number of their turnovers were guys giving up seven foot jumpers in an attempt to squeeze the ball in for a lay-up. (Maybe a hangover from the giving season.)

All in all a frustrating game. I guess I jinxed them in my notes from yesterday. From now on, nothing nice about the Bison. Just like you used to do back in the day.

Other notes:

As an "old timer", it was strange to see Bucknell as a home team in a mid-season tournament - I don't think we were a "three" seed too many times in my four years. It was an accomplishment just to not play the home team in the first game (meaning you were not the worst team of the bunch).

Not to give away the farm - but expect Santa Clara to run a lot of baseline exchanges against Bucknell's match-up tomorrow. "Rusty" does not even begin to capture it. I haven't seen people that wide open under the basket since Coach took over the team and tried to teach the forwards all the schemes in a week. Good thing Boston's backcourt could neither identify nor feed the open man in the first half thanks to the on-ball pressure from Bucknell's guards.

Out of a time out, it looked like Coach just said "to hell with it, we're getting Kevin a shot". He came off two screens and caught a forced pass and nailed a somewhat double clutch three over two people. It was enough to make you laugh.

Oh, and when I say Boston could not stop Chris, I really, really mean it. He made it look like I could score on them. (You could have even gone for eight.) He was really impressive.

Donald Brown hit two HUGE ten footers in the second half.

McNaughton finished with 20 points for Bucknell. Lee added 15 and 5 assists.

Bucknell shot 53.5 perecent (23-43) from the field, including 13-21 (61.9 percent) in the second half. The Bison held the Terriers to 40 percent from the field. That actually is the best anybody other than Villanova has shot against the Bison since Rider hit 43.8 percent in the season opener.

Box score

AP story

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Official confirmation from Bucknell that, as reported here last week, the Bison will appear on ESPN's "The Season".

From the school's release:

The Bucknell men's basketball team will be the subject of two half-hour features as part of ESPN's "The Season - College Basketball" series. The programs are scheduled to air on Jan. 3 at 11 p.m. EST and Jan. 10 at 11 p.m. EST on ESPN2.

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Alvin Reed (13) the only Raider in double figures as Colgate stops its two-game losing streak. Colgate held winless MVS to 26.7 percent shooting from the field.

Box score

AP story

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BUCKNELL vs. Boston U. 11 p.m.: Beware the Terriers 4-6 record. All the losses have come to quality opponents. Just look at the list: Michigan, UMass, Duke, George Washington, Rhode Island and Rider (at Rider). BU has a win over a good Harvard team , though none of the other wins came against teams above .500. An Achilles heel might be BU's shooting. They are hitting just 41.6 percent from the floor thus far. But their defense has been strong. Opponents are shooting only 40.1 percent against them.

According to the San Jose Mercury Times, Bucknell is the headliner of the tournament. But if the Bison do not come out hard against BU, they could find themselves facing winless UC Riverside in the consolation game tomorrow night. Suffice to say Bucknell best not get caught up in the excitement of the ESPN camera crew along for the trip or looking ahead to Duke.

From the report we received on the team's demeanor during an alumni function last night, that does not appear to be a problem. Our West Coast Correspondent (former Bucknell center Tom Welch) reports the team seemed focused on Boston U.

Reports Welch:

The real impressive thing to me is that all of the guys I spoke with (or overheard) only mentioned one team, Boston University. They did answer questions about Syracuse and talk about going to Durham, but always turned the conversation back to how much they are looking forward to playing Boston University. There is a lot of respect for (the other) BU's defense and a determination to execute against their physicality. Now it is understandable to stick to the talking points when in front of a camera or a coach, but this focus on the next game was across the board, in private and public discussions. I continue to be impressed with their mental toughness and ability to focus on the task at hand.

Welch also reported the airlines lost three guys' luggage (since recovered). You can't get those details from the WWLIS, eh?

Bucknell notes | Boston U. notes | USA Today matchup |Bucknell Radio

COLGATE vs. Mississippi Valley St. 7:30 p.m.: The Delta Devils rank last in the SWAC in scoring and last in scoring defense. Guess that makes it easy to understand why they are 0-8. Swingman Jesse Taylor (6-4) went off for 20 points in a loss to Texas-El Paso in the first round of the Sun Bowl tournament, but that does not mean Colgate should key on him. In two other games this season he has been scoreless and the UTEP game was his first in double figures.Mini-guard Tychicus Snow (5-7) is the only MVS player averaging in double figures-- just barely at 10.3 ppg..
Colgate notes (pdf) | MVS Web site | USA Today matchup | 'Gate radio
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By CHRIS A. COUROGEN
Special to The Telegram & Gazette

FAIRFAX, Va. -- You have to search pretty far back in the Holy Cross record books to find a beating as severe as the 71-38 thumping George Mason laid on the Crusaders last night.

Not since Ralph Willard's first season as coach at his alma mater, when Indiana trounced HC by 35 in the Hoosier Classic on this same date six years ago, have the Crusaders lost by a wider margin than the 33 points they lost by in this one.

That loss to Indiana might have come by a wider margin, but according to Willard, it was not a worse defeat.

"This was about as bad a rear end kicking as I have experienced in coaching for 35 years," said Willard.

Looking at the final score, it is hard to believe this started out as a pretty evenly matched game. Through the first 14 minutes, the score was even and the Crusaders (5-7) were holding their own. When Torey Thomas hit his second three-pointer of the game with 6:38 left in the half, HC actually led 21-18.

Then the bottom dropped out. By the time Holy Cross made another shot from the floor, a Tim Clifford jumper 3:49 into the second half, George Mason (7-3) had closed out the first half with a 11-2 run and opened the second with a 14-0 spurt to build a 46-25 lead.

Even though there was still 16:11 showing on the clock, the only real suspense left at that point was whether or not Mason's Lamar Butler would break the school's all-time record for three-pointers made. Butler answered that by draining a trey 16 seconds later. It was his 252nd of his career and the third of the second half, after going 0-5 from the arc before the intermission.

Butler's getting hot was one key for Mason. He didn't make a bucket until hitting a layup with 5:55 to go in the first half. That shot gave George Mason a 23-21 lead and put the Patriots ahead to stay. Butler added 6 more before the break, then scored the first 9 points of the second half, hitting a pair of treys, then converting a three-point play the old fashioned way when he was fouled while making a layup.

"Once one shot goes in for me, I always think I am on fire. They just started to fall for me," said Butler.

In the meantime, shots had stopped falling for Holy Cross captain Kevin Hamilton, Hamilton came out hot, scoring HC's first 7 points of the game. Hamilton was 3-for-3 when he hit a little jumper with 16:25 to play in the first half. He proceeded to go 0 for the rest of the game, his only other points coming on four first half free throws.

Much of the credit for stopping Hamilton goes to Butler, who along with 6-5 junior Gabe Norwood, kept a hand in his face all night long. Butler was quick to share the credit fwith his big men, who stepped out to hedge on every screen Holy Cross tried to set for its senior captain and leading scorer.

"Our big men did a good job of helping us guards. The big men helped push him out a little further," said Butler.

To Willard, it was just another symptom of an offense that could not get in sync all night.

"They were really physical with him off the ball. Kevin wasn't getting the ball in scoring areas," Willard said.

"We let them force us out of our sets. If you don't run your stuff, you are going to have a long night. They denied passes. They stepped up in the passing lanes. They took us out of things."

The end result: Holy Cross shot just 28.3 percent (15-53) from the field while turning the ball over 16 times. That turnover number might have been higher had George Mason coach Jim Larranaga not substituted liberally after building a 37-point lead.

The Crusaders three inside men, Kevin Hyland, Tim Clifford and Alex Vander Baan, were a combined 3-for-13 from the field.

Hamilton finished with the 11 points he had at the intermission. Torey Thomas also was in double figures with 16. But no other Crusader scored more than 4.

The 38 points were the fewest scored by a Holy Cross team in 59 years. The last time the Crusaders had been held under 40 points was in a 36-32 win over Boston University on Dec. 17, 1946. Of course that Holy Cross team went on to win the national championship, finishing the season 27-3

Tony Skinn, who hit a game-high 5 three-pointers, finished with 21 for Mason.

The loss was the third in a row for the Crusaders, who will be at Northeastern Friday night.

Box score

Potomac News

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The 'Gate was within one with 12 minutes to go before the Hoyas pulled away.

According to Camille Powell of the Washington Post:

Roy Hibbert, Georgetown's 7-foot-2 sophomore, continued his dominating play by making 8 of 8 shots for a game-high 18 points. He had three blocked shots but just five rebounds (zero offensive), on a night when the Hoyas did a poor job on the offensive glass (just three rebounds).

Geesh Camille, the Hoyas shot 66.7 percent from the field in the second half. There were not a whole lot of misses for them to get.

Kyle Roemer the only Raider in double figures with 11 points.

Box score

AP story

Washington Post

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In his latest post on Coach Ralph.com, Holy Cross coach Ralph Willard recaps the Crusaders' trip to Puerto Rico and takes a look at where his team is at heading into the new year. Says Willard:

"Obviously Keith's situation will be a determining factor, in how far our team can progress, along with Torrey's ability to stay healthy and out of foul trouble. Kevin and Tim will have to raise their levels and the other frosh are going to have to continue to improve and become much more consistent."

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(Originally posted Monday, 7:41 a.m., updated 7:16 a.m.)

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HOLY CROSS at George Mason 7 p.m.: Kevin Hamilton was on fire last week in San Juan. KHam was named to the all-tourney team after averaging 26.0 points and 5 rebounds per game, while shooting 54.5 percent from the floor and 57.1 percent from three-point range. Torey Thomas also earned all-tourney status and Alex Vander Baan probably should have been after averaged 15.7 points and 7 boards in the three games there.

But after those three, the rest of the Crusaders have been spotty. Keith Simmons is struggling with an ongoing cramping problem that has limited his playing time, Pat Doherty's foot problems have kept him off the floor, too. Kevin Hyland has been seeing plenty of action, though you'd hardly notice. You won't miss Tim Clifford, he is big and the officials keep pointing at him and signaling his number. Colin Cunningham and Lawrence Dixon are promising freshmen, but the emphasis there is on freshmen.

The Crusaders should get better as their collective health improves enough for Ralph Willard to conduct productive practices. The problems up front will be less a factor in league play, where most of the other teams are in the same situation.

Mason is not real big up front. They have a fleet of 6-7 types, but none taller. Mason is pretty good, though. Just ask American, who got blown out by the Patriots three weeks ago. That was game two of a six game stretch that has improved Mason's record to 6-3 after a 1-2 start that included an OT loss to No. 18 Wake Forest.

According to the Mason notes:

The Patriots have shot .531 from the field
over the past six games, while outscoring the opposition by 16.7 points per game. Mason is holding the opponents to .347 shooting during that span. Lamar Butler and Jai Lewis have been the top performers over that stretch, with Butler shooting .583 from the field and averaging 17.0 points per game while Lewis is shooting .621 while
scoring 15.0 points per game and grabbing 7.5 rebounds per contest.

No free radio, but the George Mason site does offer pay-to-listen as well as streaming video through its $6.95 a month All Access plan.
HC notes | Mason notes | USA Today matchup | Gametracker

COLGATE vs. Georgetown 9 p.m.: The question entering Colgate's first round game at the Sun Bowl Classic: Who is going to guard Georgetown center Roy Hibbert? The 7-2, 283-pound sophomore is the Hoyas leading scorer (13.9 ppg) and second-leading rebounder (6.8 rpg).

For a preview of the tournament and more on Georgetown, check out HoyaSaxa.com
Colgate notes (pdf) | Georgetown notes | El Paso Times preview | USA Today matchup | 'Gate radio

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In the latest AP Poll, Bucknell is now fourth among the "others receiving votes" with a total of 90 votes. That is a gain of 32 votes since last week, putting the Bison 45 votes out of No. 25 in the poll (currently held by previously unranked West Virginia).

Bucknell inexplicably still 10 votes behind Syracuse in the USA TODAY/ESPN Top 25 Poll. The Bison are third on the "others receiving" list in the coaches poll with 38 points. Syracuse is the top unranked votegetter with 48.

The Bison remain third in the College Insider.com Mid-Major Top 25 with 702 votes. Gonzaga, which pikced up all 31 first place votes, ranks No. 1 with 775 points. No. 2 is 10-1 Northern Iowa with 713 points. Holy Cross' Tuesday night foe, George Mason, is fourth among the "others receiving" in the mid-major rankings.

In RPI rankings, Bucknell is currently No. 7 according to Ken Pomeroy's calculations. The Patriot League ranks No. 17 among conferences. Within the league, Army has now dropped below Lehigh in the RPI rankings at 259. Lehigh is 254, Colgate 250.

Holy Cross (137) is second among league teams, followed by American (154), Lafayette (211) and Navy (236).
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Here's hoping Santa brings health and good grades to Patriot League players, wisdom to the coaches and administrators, wins to the teams, good seats to the fans and a sense of humor to those in need of one! (you know who you are)

Merry Christmas from Hoop Time

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Originally possted Friday at 11:48 p.m., updated at 8:37 a.m.)(9) Washington 54, Lehigh 37 -- The good news? Lehigh's defense held the nation's highest scoring offense over 40 points below its average. The reality? The Mountain Hawks still got beat by almost 20.

This excerpt from the AP story pretty well sums it up:

The in-your-face Huskies turned every Lehigh possession into a pained effort to get off a decent shot. And few went in. The Mountain Hawks made just seven of 29 shots in the first half -- only one beyond 5 feet -- to fall behind by 19.

Washington had averaged 95.8 points per game coming in. Lehigh's 37 were the fewest points allowed by the Huskies since 1970.

Box score

Seattle Times

Everett Herald

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Sports Washington (scout.com)

Maryland 81, American 55 -- What everyone wants to know from this one is "How did Pauli do?"

According to the AP story he showed some rust:

In his first game with the Eagles, 6-11 center Paulius Joneliunas missed his first six shots and finished with two points and two rebounds in 21 minutes. Joneliunas sat out a year after transferring from South Carolina in the middle of last season.

A game like this is not exactly the one you might schedule if you were tuning up.

AU has two more non-conference games for Joneliunas to regain a little game feel before league play starts.

Box score

Salisbury Daily Times

Baltimore Sun

The Moonie

Washington Post

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Someday Santa might bring us a league of Giant Killers. For now, it seems we are stuck with Bucknell and the seven dwarfs.

Two teams will get a chance to grab a little of the Bison's spotlight if they can upset ranked opponents tonight. It won't be easy. Lehigh is on the West Coast to face the Washington team that spanked American already this season while the Eagles are in nearby College Park for a holiday date with the Maryland Terps.

Prohibitive underdogs in both games? You betcha. But hey, isn't this a season for miracles?

Patriot League scoreboards
ESPN | CBS Sportsline | PennLive.com | Yahoo! | Mid-Majority

AMERICAN at No. 17 Maryland (Comcast Mid-Atlantic) 8 p.m.: Want a sign of how little respect American gets in its own backyard? Check out the game previews in the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post and the Moonie. Aside from a brief mention of Paulius Joneliunas in the Sun, there's barley a mention of American, other than to say that is who Maryland is playing. The two Washington papers don't mention a single AU player by name.
AU notes | Maryland notes | USA Today matchup | Buy game tickets | Gametracker | AU radio

LEHIGH at No. 11 Washington (FSN Northwest) 8 p.m.: Note the time change. Some schedules said 10 p.m. (Eastern), but it was switched to accomodate Fox Sports Net Northwest. Washington looking for its 800th win at Edmundson Pavilion, which opened in 1927. Lehigh is still without Joe Knight, while an already strong Washington welcomes back Mike Jensen, a 6-foot-8 forward who returns from shoulder surgery.
Lehigh notes | Washington notes | USA Today matchup | Gametracker
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(Originally posted Thursday, 10:50 p.m., updated at 8:49 a.m.)

Navy 73, Brown 64 -- After the Bucknell-Saint Joe's game Wednesday night, we had a chance to chat with former Bucknell sports info assistant Kelli Sheesley, who now works at Navy, about the Midshipmen's woes. Kelli told us if they could get Greg Sprink going, it would be a real boost for the Mids.

One night later, this is the lead to the AP story:

Greg Sprink scored a career-high 34 points and tied a school record by hitting nine 3-point shots as Navy erased a 16-point second-half deficit for a 73-64 victory over Brown on Thursday night.

Note to Jim Crews: start working on the full court pressure package.

Sprink scored 31 of his 34 in the second half, prompting Brown coach Glen Miller to tell Shalise Manza Young of the Providence Journal:

"We should be able to make adjustments. He was in a zone. You can't just be near him with your hands down and think he's guarded. It's not good enough to be close."

That inability to make adjusments might explain why Miller's team is 2-7. Best learn to make them soon coach or it will be back to directing the big band for you.

Box score

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Tom Housenick, Bucknell beat writer for The Daily Item looks at BU's fedhman Jason Vegotsky in his weekly college hoops column:

Vegotsky came to campus with a great jump shot and a loaded gun. He scored more than 2,000 points at Pennsbury High, using his offensive skills to win games.

At Bucknell, you play defense or you might as well sell your bench seat and pocket the profits.

In other Bucknell-related news . . .
Forget the WWLIS. Forget "The Season". Bucknell's Kevin Bettencourt has a big time media appearnace before all that. No, the senior guard will not be Kyle's Podcast guest. But almost as big. He will be a guest Saturday morning on North Shore Sports Desk on North Shore 104.9 FM in Beverly, Mass. from 7-8 a.m.

Best we can tell there is no audio stream, but if someone in the area wants to record it, digitalize it, and figure out a way to get it to us, we'll be glad to post the audio files on the site.
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One season is beginning, another is apparently over.

ABOUT TO START: Filming of the Bucknell Bison for footage to be used in ESPN's The Season series.

A school official confirmed that a WWLIS' camera crew will be accompanying the Bison on their road trip to the Bay Area for the Cable Car Classic next week.

Bucknell is expected to be the focus of the first two shows of the series when it airs. No word yet on what other schools might be included or any air date.

Sources say an announcement from Bucknell will be made after ESPN makes an official release.

ABOUT OVER: It looks as if Bucknell forward John Clark will not play this season and his career might well be over due to his ongoing struggles with foot problems.

Clark was not in Lewisburg for Wednesday night's game with Saint Joe's, having already headed hoime for the holidays. Clark is expected to seek a second opinion, but the odds appear against him playing again.

Clark's injury cut last season short for the 6-7 junior from Tulsa, Okla. Clark started 13 games last season, including all 11 of the Bison's midseason win streak that included wins at Saint Joe's and Pittsburgh. Clark managed to appear in 31 of the Bison's 33 games, but was limited to spot minutes down the stretch.

It had been hoped that the foot problems would heal with rest during the offseason. In August, when that had not happened, Clark underwent surgery. During the preseason, there was talk of a January return, with Clark himself expressing confidence he would be back even sooner.

Once workouts began in earnest, though, Clark's foot problems resurfaced.

Bison coach Pat Flannery said Clark no longer comes to practice every day, but remains close to his teammates and still has a locker in the team locker room. Clark continues to work out and atttempting to rehab the foot, but has been hobbled by the injury.

Flannery said Clark can take all the time he wants to make a decision on whether or not to keep trying for a comeback.

The loss of Clark, one of Bucknell's first group of scholarship players, is softened by the emergence of sophomore Darren Mastropaolo at the four spot. But a healthy Clark would be a nice addition to the lineup, even if he were able to only provide limited minutes off the bench.

Clark played in 60 games his first two seasons, starting 17 as a freshman and 13 last season.
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Patriot League scoreboards
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NAVY at Brown 6 p.m.:This is pretty much a must win if the Patriot League is to claim the season series with the Ivies. With six games between the two leagues remaining, two of which involve Army and one that has Lafayette at Ivy favorite Penn, the Patriots almost need to win the other three, which starts with this this one. Even then they will likely need Army to upset Brown or Dartmouth to bring home the beautiful Hoop Time-Basketball U. Challenge (virtual) trophy, since the Ivies would keep the trophy they won last season if the series ends tied.

Navy certainly should stand a good chance of doing its part when it visits the Brown bears this evening. Brown comes in at 2-6 following a home loss Tuesday to a 3-8 Maryland-Eastern Shore team.
Navy notes (pdf) | Brown notes | USA Today matchup | Gametracker | Navy radio
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The latest NCAA graduation rates data has been released.

PL MENS' HOOPS GRAD. RATES
School      Pct.
American      38
Army            96
Bucknell       100
Colgate         90
Holy Cross   100
Lafayette       82
Lehigh           87
Navy             97

The study looked at the rate of graduation for players entering school from 1995-98. The study used a new formula that removes student-athletes who leave a school in good academic standing from the equation.

American wants to be sure folks understand this was from a period before the Eagles entered the Patriot League and before Jeff Jones was named head coach there. Since then, they claim in this release, significant progress has been made.

NCAA GSR data

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(Originally posted 10:02 p.m., updated with links at 8:23 a.m.)

Phil Martelli wanted to blame finals.

"Right after exams it is always a difficult challenge," said the Saint Joseph's coach after his Hawks finished on the short end of a 63-61 final at Bucknell Wednesday night.

To be fair to the Hawks, Martelli was speaking the truth. Saint Joe's had not played since losing to Ohio State back on Dec. 10. But it was Bucknell's defense that was the difference in this one.

Chet Stachitas' face wasn't buried in a book when the nation's leading three-point shooter went 2-for-11 from the arc (3-14 overall) against Bucknell. And those were not his finance notes that caused that kind of showing from a guy who came in hitting 63 percent from the arc. Those were Charles Lee's hands.

"If he was going to shoot it, he was going to shoot it," said Lee. "But I wanted to be there in his face."

Lee was not the only one in somebody from Saint Joe's face. The Hawks came in ranked seventh in the nation in 3-point shooting, hitting at a clip of better than 43 percent. They went home with that percentage lowered a little after a 5-for-22 night. Overall, Saint Joe's shot 36.2 percent from the field.

When Stachitas hit his first three of the game, it gave Saint Joe's a 13-8 lead with 13:14 to go in the first half. By the time the Hawks scored again, eight-and-a-half minutes later, Bucknell had put up 16 unanswered points to take a 24-13 lead. Stahcitas himself did not score again until he hit a three just before the break. His only other bucket came on a layup with 7:18 to play.

It's the kind of defense Bucknell hs played throughout its 8-1 start, its best since the 1956-57 season. Saint Joe's was the seventh opponent in Bucknell's last eight games to shoot under 40 percent. Only Villanova, which shot an even 50 percent against BU, has shot better than 44 percent against the Bison, who ranked 12th in the nation in field goal percentage defense coming in.

"The matchups gave us all kinds of problems. Fifty-one points and you are not going to win any Division 1 games," said Martelli.

"Our defense was outstanding," said Bucknell coach Pat Flannery, stating the obvious.

The offense was not too bad either. Shooting the ball well outside (7-12, 58.3 percent from the arc) and inside (21-39, 53.8 percent overall), the Bison showed great balance, Four players finished in double figures, led by Kevin Bettencourt, who finished with 17. Charles Lee chipped in 14, Chris McNaughton 12 and John Griffin added 10 off the bench.

The only blemish from a Bucknell point of view was the Bison's weak free throw shooting that kept Saint Joe's in the game until late. The Bison were 14-28 from the stripe, a stat that was buoyed by a 9-14 showing in the final 1:05 of the game.

Bettencourt shrugged it off though.

"We missed free throws, that happens. We hit them when we needed them," he said.

Ahmad Nivins, a 6-9 freshman out of St. Anthony's in Jersey City, led the Hawks with 17 points. Stahcitas finished with 12.

The win came in front of a crowd of 4,252 fans, the second largest in school history.

Hoop Time Gameblog

Box score

The Daily Item

Philadelphia Inquirer

Philly Daily News

Patriot-News

AP story

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(Originally posted Wednesday, 7:12 p.m., updated at 8:21 a.m.)

From the AP story:

GUAYNABO, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Jamall Edmondson made a 3-pointer with 4 seconds left to give Mississippi State a 76-75 victory over Holy Cross in the third-place game at the San Juan Shootout on Wednesday.

A tough loss for a team that does not usually lose in this sort of situation. The Crusaders were up 9 with three minutes to go, up 5 with 29 seconds left. Against a Ralph Willard defense, that usually is a cue to the bus driver.

But the shorthanded Crusaders could not hold on. Mississippi State cut it to 1 on a Walter Sharpe slam and a Jamont Gordon runner off a HC turnover in the backcourt. Then the Bulldogs won it on Edmondson's trey after Alex Vander Baan missed one of two free throws with 11 seconds left.

Notable from a quick glance at the box score:

Clifford gets a start (goes 1-6, 4 reb 2 blcoks, 3 TO

Simmons played only 16 minutes due to leg cramps (T&G story says he did not play at all the second half)

Hamilton 27 points, 3 steals, 6 assists with only 1 turnover

Vander Baan 21 with 9 boards

Points in the paint-MSU 42,HC 28

Bench points-MSU 35,HC 7

MSU went 11 players deep. HC played 8 guys, three of them freshmen

Box score

Telegram & Gazette

Jackson (Ms.) Clarion-Ledger

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They were actually scalping tickets outside of Sojka Pavilion tonight. Staff freebies selling for 10 bucks.

If I were to guess, I'd venture much of the crowd is local kids who go to school elsewhere. The crowd is almost as heavily weighted with college age faces as the Villanova game, but there is far less orange.

Bucknell is on a 13-0 run right now.

The refs are definitely letting them play tonight. With 6 minutes to go in the half, both teams have just three team fouls.

Griffin trey makes it a 16-0 run.

Saint Joe's finally scored. Bucknell responded with 5 unanswered points.

Stachitas makes a late three. He is now 2-7, 2-6 from 3-point range.

Bucknell shooting 57 percent at the break. St. Joe's 35 percent.

Seven guys have scored for balanced Bucknell. Bettencourt (10) leads them.

Nobody in double figures for Saint Joe's.

Big difference is Bucknell's inside-outside balance. Outscoring Saint Joe's 10-2 in the paint.

Bucknell 32, St. Joe's 21 (Halftime)

St. Joes no field goals 0-2 3 turnovers so far in second half.

You knew St. Joe's would make a run at some point. This is that point. The Hawks have outscored BU 11-2 over the past 4-plus minutes to pull within 7.

Forget the "let 'em play" stuff. Bison have 7 team fouls and St. Joe's is already shooting 1 and 1. Badmus on the bench with four fouls. Hawks have only 2 team fouls.

McNaughton with 6 of Bucknell's last 8. All from 10-12 feet out. Bucknell's lead back in double digits at 47-36.

Stachitas now 3-11, 2-8 from 3-point range with 3 to play.

Badmus fouls out with 1:07 to play, Bucknell up 10, 54-44.

Four Bison in double figures.

Lee 14
McNaughton 12
Griffin 10
Bettencourt 15

The final much closer than the game itself thanks to Bucknell's horrendour free throw shooting (14-28)
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Saint Joseph's at BUCKNELL 7 p.m.: Bucknell's emergence as a mid major power began with a win at Saint Joseph's last season. The Hawks come in at 4-2, with a win over Kansas among the wins. The others were less impressive, coming against Lafayette, Fairfield and Drexel. Saint Joe's losses have come at Davidson in overtime, and at home to Ohio State. A win would give Bucknell an 8-1 start for the first time since 1956-57. To get that win, Bucknell will have to stop the Hawks' three-point shooters, especially leading scorer Chet Stachitas, a 6-5 swingman who is hitting 63 percent of his shots from the arc. Overall, the Hawks shoot 43 percent from 3-point range.
Bucknell notes | St. Joe's notes | Daily Item preview | USA Today matchup |Bucknell Radio

HOLY CROSS vs. Mississippi St. 2 p.m.: The Bulldogs saw a five-game win streak end in the semis with a loss to Akron. Although MSU is 8-3 on the season, that record could be deceptive. Seven of those games were played in Starkville.
HC notes | MSU notes | San Juan Shootout bracket | USA Today matchup | No free radio
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Clemson 71, Holy Cross 48 -- Clemson shot 56.7 percent in the second half to break open what was a one-point (25-24) game at the half.

One day after his 38 point performance that earned him Ken Pomeroy's line of the night and Kyle Whelliston's Mid-Majority Baller of the Day honors, Kevin Hamilton was held to 13 points by Clemson. It was not like Hamilton had an off night. He shot 50 percent from the field (4-8, including 3-4 from 3-point range). Clemson just did not let him have many open looks.

"He didn't get shots. I thought that that was important that he didn't get into rhythm early," Clemson coach Oliver Purnell told Scout.com's Clemson Insider.

Clemson forced 21 HC turnovers, converting them into 25 points and the Tigers outscored HC in the paint 32-24.

HC's Keith Simmons was limited to 11 minutes of action due to cramps.

Box score

Rock Hill Herald

Anderson Independent Mail

Harvard 68, Colgate 59 -- Here we go again. Remember all the whining we heard from Emmitt Davis last season when other teams would shoot more free throws than the Raiders? Last night, after getting dominated inside by Harvard, there's Davis telling the Boston Herald:

"They get 30 makes to our 14 attempts so that’s a big part of the game . . ."

At the risk of sounding redundant, Emmitt, you are not going to get to the foul line until you develop an inside game. Jump shooters don't shoot a lot of free throws.

Want to look at the real reasons Colgate lost, check out rebounding, where Harvard held a 43-24 edge. Sure having three guys foul out does not help. But explain how, in a game where the whistle is going against you, how does Kendall Chones only pick up 2 personals? Does that, combined with the fact the also only had 2 rebounds suggests a lack of aggressiveness?

And who was guarding Harvard freshman Drew Housman, who had a career-high 21 points against Colgate? Was it the same person who tried to guard Joe Knight in the tournament last season?

Box score

AP Story

Yale 73, Navy 70 -- The Mids led by 10 at the half and were up 63-58 with 6:12 to play before Yale went on a 7-0 run to take the lead for good. Navy still had a chance when Yale freshman Chris Andrews missed the front end of a one-and-one with 12.5 to play. After the miss Andrews stole the ball from Navy's David Hooper. Andrews was fouled immediately and made one of two, leaving the Mids with a chance to force OT. But Andrews came up with another steal to seal the win for the Elis.

Box score

AP Story

New Haven Register

Cornell 74, Army 39 -- It was over by the time they went to the locker rooms at halftime in Ithaca, with Cornell up by 22, 38-16. Army shot 18 percent in the first half, 29.5 percent for the game. Usually dependable Matt Bell held to 4 points on 1-6 shooting.

Defensively, Army had no blocks and only 1 steal while Cornell was busy shooting 52 percent from the field.

Box score

AP Story

Lafayette 72, Dickinson 52 -- Nobody covered this one, but we did find a story about Pat Betley's dad and a column we missed yesterday about why Fran O'Hanlon schedules games with Division 3 teams. We can't even link to the box score, since Lafayette's site shows a Lafayette-Siena soccer box when you click on the link.

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Patriot League scoreboards
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Three Patriot-Ivy matchups give the Patriot League a chance to clinch no worse than a tie in the series if they can sweep tonight. With six more interleague matchups on the schedule following tonight, the Patriots would be up by 6 games in the series with a sweep.

A week or two ago, you'd look at tonight's matchups and say a Patriot sweep was impossible. But Cornell already has lost to Lafayette and looked absolutely pitiful against Bucknell. For Army to beat the Big Red in Ithaca would be an upset, but certainly not a shocker.

ARMY at Cornell 4 p.m.: Army looking to be at .500 at the holidays for the first time under Jim Crews. If Cornell spends the night shooting jumpers with no inside game the way they played at Bucknell, the Cadets could do it. After all, last year Cornell only beat Army by 7, Granted, that was at West Point. But Army is much improved this season.
Army notes (pdf) | Cornell notes | Ithaca Journaal preview | USA Today matchup | Gametracker

COLGATE at Harvard 7 p.m.: An interesting matchup between two of the better teams in the two leagues. The Crimson are 7-3 with a two-game win streak that includes a victory over a good Albany team Saturday in a game they played without seven-footer Brian Cusworth and junior Jim Goffredo (14.3 ppg, 4th in the Ivy). Harvard opened the season with five straight wins, beating Vermont and Holy Cross in that stretch. That was followed by a three-game skid that was capped by a loss at Lehigh.

Goffredo, whose string of 63 consecutive games played ended Saturday when an staph infection kept him out of the lineup, is expected to be back in the starting lineup, according to the Harvard Crimson. Cusworth is not expected back until January.

Colgate is 5-5, and has yet to win on the road. The Raiders early season injury woes appear to be abating. Kendall Chones and Marc Daniels are both listed as expected starters. Their presence inside should be a plus for Colgate.
Colgate notes (pdf) | Hobart Web site | USA Today matchup | Live Stats | 'Gate radio


NAVY at Yale 7 p.m.: Navy made a switch at the point during finals, moving freshman Kaleo Kina from the two, replacing fellow plebe Clif Colbert, who had been filling in since Corey Johnson was injured. Colbert, who had done a decent job, is now on the wing.

Yale is 4-4, coming off a win over Hampton on Saturday. The Elis got a boost from the addition of 6-10 senior center Dominick Martin, a transfer from Princeton who scored 14 off the bench in his first game back after sitting out the fall semester.
Navy notes (pdf) | Yale notes | USA Today matchup | Gametracker | Navy radio

HOLY CROSS vs. Clemson, 12 noon: The unbeaten (9-0) Clemson Tigers will pose a challange for the Crusaders, who would love to have another 38-point show by Kevin Hamilton but will settle for holding the Tigers below 40 percent from the field like they did against Tennessee-Chattanooga.
HC notes | Clemson notes | San Juan Shootout bracket | USA Today matchup | No free radio

Dickinson at LAFAYETTE, 7 p.m.: Dickinson is a 3-5 Division 3 team that plays a 4-guard lineup most of the time.
Lafayette notes | Dickinson Web site | USA Today matchup | Gametracker
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(Originally posted Monday, 10:02 p.m., updated with links at 7:17 a.m.}

Listening to a little on the Bison Sports Network broadcast, it sounded like an uninspired walk-through sort of effort from a team coming off a big win over Cornell with a showdown with Saint Joe's on the horizon.

From the game wrap on the BU Web site:

Chris McNaughton and Jason Vegotsky scored 14 points each to lead Bucknell to its second straight 30-plus point victory, 76-44 over Haverford on Monday night at Sojka Pavilion. Kevin Bettencourt added 11 points and five assists for the Bison, who improved to 7-1 on the season.

Box score

The Daily Item

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(Originally posted Monday, 1:53 p.m., updated with links at 7:03 a.m.}

It is 82 and partly cloudy in Puerto Rico this afternoon, but that is not why Ralph Willard is smiling.

Kevin Hamilton poured in a career-high 38 points for the Crusaders, who won their third in a row, romping past Tennessee-Chattanooga and into the semifinals of the San Juan Shootout. Torey Thomas and Alex Vander Baan with 11 each for HC.

Crusaders shot 51 percent and held UT-C to 39 percent.

Holy Cross will meet unbeaten Clemson (9-0) in Tuesday's second round. Clemson advanced with a 101-60 win over the host school, Puerto Rico-Mayaguez.

Box score

Telegram & Gazette

AP story

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Jimmy Carter said that once. Lots of others have echoed that sentiment.

Couldn't blame the Bucknell Bison if they felt a little that way when they look at some of the numbers out today. After beating Cornell by 44 points Saturday, the Bison have actually fallen 4 places in the RPI, according to Ken Pomeroy's calculations. Bucknell is now ninth. They were fifth entering play Saturday.

(NOTE: According to an anonymous e-mailer, the Bison actually dropped to 12 after beating Cornell, then moved back up to 9 when Syracuse and Yale picked up Ws)

In the latest USA Today-ESPN Coaches Poll, the Bison are now seventh among teams listed in the "others receiving votes" category. we won't repeat last week's rant about the polls. But we would welcome e-mails from anyone who can explain just what the heck Syracuse has done to deserve more than twice as many votes as a team that spanked them on their own floor?

In the Mid-Major Poll, Buckneell remains No. 3, behind Gonzaga and Northern Iowa. Bucknell's potential Cable Car Classic opponent, Santa Clara, is in the others receiving category of the MM poll.

In the AP poll, the Bison fourth among others receiving with 58 points. Unofficially that puts them seven spots behind No. 22 Wake Forest. We mention the Demon Deacons only because they lost at home last week to the same DePaul team that Bucknell beat on DePaul's floor.

Go figure.
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HOLY CROSS vs. Tennessee-Chattanooga, 12 noon: You might see Tennessee-Chattanooga's mascot and wonder what the heck does a bird in a railroader's outfit have to do with "Moccasins." The answer: not a thing. Like Lehigh, the school went through a mascot identity crisis in the 90s. Apparently back in the 1920s, Moccasins was a reference to the snake known as a Water Moccasin. That later morphed into what we used to call an Indian theme (now better known as Native American theme), which by the mid-90s was causing considerable hand-wringing by forward-thinking, politically correct administrators who could see the recent NCAA ban on such images looming on the horizon. Thus the company that designed Lehigh's (among many others) new look was brought in to help solve the perceived problem.

The solution did not involve changing names like it did at Lehigh, but the change was nearly as drastic:

Adopting the State Bird of Tennessee (the Mockingbird) as the core of the new identity, while incorporating the strong regional imagery of the “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” and Chattanooga’s vast railroad history, SME Design created a strong and very unique athletics identity for UTC.

Loosely translated that means, SME designed stuff that will helps us sell more T-shirts.

You might wonder why all this information in what is supposed to be a basketball game preview. Two reasons: We enjoy opportunities to poke fun at poilitical correctness and we are tired of writing about how banged up Holy Cross' roster is right now. You want to read about that, or get a scouting report on the Mocs, go to Coach Ralph's site, he already did that. NOTE: There will be no HC radio from the tournament. We have posted a link to the UT-C broadcast for today's game. Most of the other schools involved charge for their Webcasts, so unless HC meets Liberty along the way, you will need to fork over some cash to hear the other games from the San Juan Shootout.
HC notes | UT-Cnotes | USA Today matchup | UT-C radio

Haverford at BUCKNELL 7 p.m.: It is easy to poke at some schools when they schedule Division 3 teams. Given Bucknell's non-conference schedule this season, nobody will take any shots at the Bison for bringing the 3-4 Fords, who beat perennial D-3 power F&M in their last game before a nine-day break for finals.

Coming back from that kind of layoff is tough enough without having to do so against a team like Bucknell in a place like Sojka Pavilion with a roster that includes two guys over 6-5, only one of which sees many minutes.

The Fords are shooting 40 percent from the field as a team against D-3 opposition. It is almost scary to think how low that number could be tonight, though with Saint Joe's coming to Lewisburg Wednesday, Pat Flannery won't play his first 7 or 8 guys more than he has to. Expect the starters to break a sweat, then take a seat and watch some of the youngsters break their personal career bests.
Bucknell notes | Haverford Web site | USA Today matchup |Bucknell Radio

Dickinson at LAFAYETTE, TUESDAY - 7 p.m.: The league Web site says this game is tonight. Once again, the schedule on the league site is wrong.
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After posting a report about Bucknell showing recruiting interest in 6-7 forward Tyrone Nash from Woodmere, N.Y., e-mailers have asked how Bucknell, which has already signed three recruits for next season, can add another player given the Bison's limit of three scholarships per year and 10 overall.

According to Bucknell coach Pat Flannery, the Bison may sign a fourth recruit for next season due to the ongoing injury problems of junior forward John Clark.

Clark, who in the preseason expressed hopes of returning to action in January, had August surgery to repair an injured foot that cost him most of the second half of last season. Clark has yet to return to practice and Flannery says it is possible Clark's injuries may end his career.

If Clark is unable to play, that would free one of Bucknell's scholarships, allowing the Bison to offer a fourth this year.
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Patriot League scoreboards
ESPN | CBS Sportsline | PennLive.com | Yahoo! | Mid-Majority

Washington College at NAVY 3 p.m.: Navy's opponent is the Washington College Shoremen, not the Huskies of the University of Washington. The difference, of course, is huge. The Huskies are 9-0 and ranked No. 11 or No. 10 in the country, depending which poll you look at. The Shoremen are a 5-4 Division 3 team from the Centennial Conference.

Sounds easy, right? Except it was Gettysburg, another Centennial team, that knocked off Navy last season in what was easily the most embarrassing loss suffered by a Patriot League team last season. And the Shoremen, on a four-game win streak, are probably better than Gettysburg was.

That should not matter. But it has to be mentioned.

A note for fans in the Annapolis area, the over the air radio broadcast will be tape delayed at 8 p.m., but the Webcast will be live. Of course if you live close enough to Annapolis to pick up WNAV and have nothing better to do this afternoon than to listen to the Mids against a Division 3 school on your computer, then maybe you ought to get off the couch and head over to Alumni Hall in person.
Navy notes (pdf) | Washington College Web site | USA Today matchup | Gametracker | Navy radio
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The injury bug continues to plague Holy Cross, reports Ralph Willard in the latest post on his Web site:

Right now, our basketball team has limited options, especially defensively, due to our health situation. Coming into the year I thought this would be a group that would run well in transition and be able to extend the defense. Right now we can't extend the defense, except in desperate situations and we almost have to think about being real patient and maybe even shortening the game in situations because it looks like at least three guys will have to be playing 35 plus minutes.

Ralph's post also includes a scouting report on Tennessee-Chattanooga, the Crusaders' first round foe in the San Juan Shootout.
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(Originally posted 4:11 p.m. Saturday, updated with links 10:21 a.m.)

There were two big questions about Bucknell heading into Saturday afternoon's Sojka Pavilion matinee with Cornell: how might the Bison react after suffering their first loss of the season against Villanova and how rusty might the Bison look following an 11-day layoff after that game to study for and take finals.

Both questions were pretty obvious well before halftime, when Bucknell went on a 20-0 that sparked what eventually became a 83-39 win over the Ivy League visitors from Ithaca. Matter of fact, about the only question left after intermission was would Bucknell win by more than 50 points to set a new school margin of victory record.

They didn't; the biggest margin the reserves who played the last five or six minutes could muster was 47.

Nobody in orange and blue seemed bothered.

The Bison treated the Big Red like a piece of red carpet. They played the game like it was a variety show, with taking turns showcasing their talents.

The opening act was a duet with Chris McNaughton singing lead and Kevin Bettencourt chipping in on harmony. The pair combined for Bucknell's first 15 points, the last five -- a little 5-foot jumper off a lightning quick spin dribble by McNaughton and a Bettencourt three off a screen -- igniting the 20-0 run that was the high point of the show.

Then it was freshman Jason Vegotsky's turn. Vegotsky came into the game having made just 1-of-8 shots on the season. Pat Flannery's practice reviews, though, had been raves all season. Just wait till you see this kid get going, Flannery had been telling anyone who asked. After seeing the 6-2 guard from Pennsbury High School score 9 straight points during that run, folks know what Flannery was talking about.

"He's a great shooter," said Flannery, who quickly made it clear that was not why Vegotsky was on the floor at the time.

"He came in in the first half and played (Lenny) Collins well defensively. That got him on the floor to score some points," Flannery said.

Vegotsky started his spurt with two quick treys, then added an old-fashioned 3-point play after he was fouled while making a little baseline runner after beating his man off the dribble.

"When the first one went down, it gave me that confidence that if I got my shot it was going down," said Vegotsky, who was 4-for-4 in the half, 4-for-5 for the game.

Late in the half it was Abe Badmus stealing the offensive spotlight. Badmus jump-started a 12-0 run at the end of the half by hitting for 7 of his 11 points in that stretch. The 6-0 Chicagoan started it by scoring back-to-back buckets, one of which he turned into a 3-point play at the foul line. After Vegotsky made a nifty feed to Tarik Viaer-McClymont for a slam, Badmus got to the line for two more free throws.

"Abe is always Abe. He is just so exciting and so explosive," Flannery said after reviewing a final box that showed Bucknell's junior point guard with 11 points, 3 steals, 6 assists and just one turnover.

Vegotsky capped the run and the half with another trey that made it 51-17 at the break.

Cornell opened the second half with a 3-pointer by Collins to cut Bucknell's lead to 31. The Big Red never got closer.

How could they with Bucknell shooting the way it did and Colgate shooting the way it didn't. The Bison did not match their 20-29 (69 percent) pace from the first half in the second. But a 50-percent (9-18) half, combined with 13-19 free throw shooting and a defense that held Cornell under 30 percent both halves, it was more than enough.

"What we do really well right now is sharing the ball. We make the extra pass and get pretty good shots," said McNaughton, who finished with 12 points, hitting 5-of-6 in 20 minutes of work. Bettencourt was the fourth Bison in double figures, finishing with 11 points and 5 assists.

"We have been a pretty good defensive team up to this point," said Cornell coach Stevce Donahue. "They exposed us."

Flannery was more pleased with the defense, which held Cornell to its lowest point total in 97 games, dating back to a Feburary 2001 loss to Princeton. Bucknell has now held Cornell under 30 percent from the field two years in a row, surpassing last season's 29.4 percent effort by limiting Cornell to 13-of-49 (26.5 percent) in the game. Collins was the only Cornell player to reach double figures (12 points) and it took him 15 shots (4-15) to do it.

"We didn't give them any easy baskets," said Flannery.

It was Cornell's first loss by more than 40 points since a 1996 loss at Kansas and the widest margin of victory in the 41-game series, which dates back to 1900.

Box score

The Daily Item

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(Orignally posted 4:03 p.m. Saturday, updated 10:19 a.m.)

Army 53, SUNY Maritime 36 -- After leading by just one at the half, Army shot 48 percent and held Maritime to 17 percent in the second half.

Box score

AP story

Colgate 72, Hobart 47 -- From the AP wrap:

Jon Simon and Kyle Roemer each scored 10 points to lead Colgate to a 72-47 victory over Hobart on Saturday.

Box score

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Patriot League scoreboards
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Cornell at BUCKNELL 1 p.m.: The loss to Villanova has festered for over a week. That ought to be plenty of motivation when the Bison try to shake off 11 days of final exam rust. When Bucknell beat Cornell last season, it was the first time in 11 years the Bison had won their first game back after finals. Admission will be free as part of Bucknell's Community Day. Last year that promotion brought close to a full house to Sojka for the Bison's league opener against Holy Cross. It will be interesting to see if the locals make up for the absence of the students again. Keep in mind, last year the freebie offer came on the heels of the Bison's wins over Saint Joseph's and Pittsburgh and was after the holidays. This year there's still plenty of buzz about BU, but the game is in prime shopping season.

Like Bucknell, Cornell is coming off of a break of close to two weeks for finals. The enigmatic Big Red snapped a three-game losing streak with a come-from-behind home win over Lehigh their last time out. Among its losses is a close, 67-62 setback at Syracuse that was followed by a 12-point loss at Penn State. Cornell is 2-1 against Patriot teams, with a home win over a Kendall Chones-less Colgate and a very bad road loss at Lafayette in a game where the Big Red scored only 43 points. NOTE: This is a 1 p.m. start. The Patriot League's site has the wrong time listed.
Bucknell notes | Cornell notes | Ithaca Journal preview | USA Today matchup |Bucknell Radio

New York Maritime at ARMY 1 p.m.: The Division 3 Privateers sail up the Hudson to pick up a check and an L, allowing Army fans what should be one of their still rare opportunities to celebrate after a game (see caveat in the Colgate preview).
Army notes (pdf) | NY Maritime Web site | USA Today matchup | Gametracker

Hobart at COLGATE 1:30 p.m.: Another wrong start time on the league site -- this one does start at 1:30. Hobart is the basic D-3 fodder to get back in game form after finals for Colgate. Should be a bought win, though Navy showed the danger of not coming to play against a D-3 when they lost to Gettysburg last season. Hobart is a 2-4 team from a school so politically correct they call freshmen "first years." Want to know more about the Statesmen? Here's their Web site, knock yourself out.
Colgate notes (pdf) | Hobart Web site | USA Today matchup | Live Stats | 'Gate radio

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Lehigh might have to forfeit games, but guard's admission meets league guidelines

Lehigh could be forced to forfeit games form last season because of questions about the eligibility of Mountain Hawks point guard Joe Knight.

“It is something we will be reviewing as a league whether or not any games have to be forfeited,” league executive director Carolyn Schlie Femovich told Hoop Time in an exclusive interview.

Knight, who transferred to Lehigh last year, is currently sitting out a 16-game suspension imposed by the NCAA after problems were discovered with the way the school had applied credits he earned at tow previous stops toward the NCAA’s progress toward degree requirements.

Knight transferred to Lehigh after spending two years at High Point and an additional year at a community college near his parents’ home in Texas, where he concentrated on academics and did not play basketball.

While the NCAA’s eligibility review might trigger forfeits from last season, Femovich said Knight’s admission at Lehigh was not in violation of the league’s “principles of admitting athletes who are academically representative of their class.”

“Our position on this is the member institution makes the decision if an individual is academically qualified to transfer. Lehigh is not going to admit any student they do not feel is qualified to meet their academic standards,” Femovich said.

The league does have a process that allows other schools to challenge the admission of any student-athletes they feel violate those principles. No school made such a challenge when Knight was admitted, Femovich said.

Knight’s academic background has been the subject of considerable speculation by bloggers (us included) and the posters on various message boards that serve Patriot League fans. Much of that speculation has centered on reports Knight left High Point because of academic problems.

Femovich said that was not the case. Lehigh’s Dean of Athletics, Joe Sterrett, confirmed Femovich’s report.

“(Knight) was in good standing at High Point, though he did have a GPA that was less than ideal,” Sterrett said. Sterrett said Knight’s GPA at High Point was around a 2.0.

According to Sterrett, Knight’s decision to leave High Point was for other reasons, primarily a change in the High Point coaching staff. When he decided to transfer, Knight contacted Lehigh assistant Brett Reed, who had originally recruited Knight when he was an assistant at High Point.

At that point, Sterrett said, Lehigh’s admissions department told Knight he lacked the background and credentials to be admitted and suggested he go elsewhere for a year and take courses that would be acceptable at Lehigh.

That led to Knight’s decision to enroll at Tarrant Community College in Arlington, Tx., where he was a Dean’s List student with a GPA well above 3.0 while earning an associates degree while working and paying his own way.

“He was told he had to have a year with a 3.0 or better in courses commensurate with the content of Lehigh courses. They said this is what you have to do and he did it,” Sterrett said.

Since being admitted to Lehigh, Sterrett said Knight has improved his GPA each semester. Knight began the fall semester with a 2.4 or 2.5, Sterrett said. Progress reports from Knight’s professors indicate he is on track to have a better than 3.0 in the fall semester, which will likely raise his overall Lehigh GPA to around a 2.7, Sterrett said.

“Since he has been here he has done increasingly good work. He has been an outstanding citizen and a very capable, consistent, dependable student,” Sterrett said.

To Sterrett, Knight’s situation is typical of a student who lacked both maturity and strong guidance when he was younger.

“He has matured into a terrific young man,” Sterrett said.

Sterrett admitted Knight’s path to Lehigh is not the typical one. But Knight is not the only Lehigh student admitted as a transfer who struggled at another school, then went to a community college to bring up their grades before transferring to Lehigh, he said.

“There are not many, but there are others. Sometimes local kids will go away to school, struggle, come home and take some time to improve their grades, then come here,” Sterrett said.

J. Bruce Gardiner, Lehigh’s director of admissions, confirmed that. “It happens all the time,” Gardiner said.

A check with admissions representatives at some other league schools confirmed that similar scenarios are not out of the norm.

Questions have also been raised about how students who attend a community college for a year fit under the league’s no redshirting policy.

“We have a policy that does not permit redshirting for athletic purposes,” said Femovich, noting the emphasis was on athletic purposes.

In Knight’s case, being allowed to play during a fifth year of school falls under a standard exemption.

“Many times course work from other institutions is not accepted so student athlete might get behind a semester or two. There sis a standard waiver for transfer students if they need to be on campus a fifth year to complete their degree,” Femovich said.

Similar questions have been raised about Colgate sophomores Kyle and Kendall Chones, who spent last year at a community college concentrating on academics after struggling with their grades in their freshman year at Colgate.

Femovich said the Chones brothers’ situation was not unlike other students at league schools, who might be asked to leave campus for academic reasons with a stipulation that they could be readmitted if they demonstrate a readiness to return.

When the situation involves a student-athlete, the league’s policy committee, made up of representatives from each league school, reviews it. That committee deals with non-standard eligibility issues. The league’s Council of Presidents, Femovich said, must also endorse the committee’s decision.

In all cases, academics are the guiding principle.

“Do they have an academic reason to take time off. Do they have an academic reason to be on campus for that ninth semester or fifth year,” Femovich said.

Femovich said that means any student granted the fifth season of eligibility must also be enrolled in an academic program that requires the extra year of study. That can include graduate work, Femovich said.

It is unclear how that might apply to the Chones brothers. According to Colgate’s preseason basketball prospectus, neither has declared a major yet. Colgate does not offer graduate level courses.

Femovich said it is possible the Chones brothers might have to come back before the policy committee for review prior to their being declared eligible for a fifth year.
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In his latest post on Coach Ralph.com, Holy Cross coach Ralph Willard says slowly, but surely, his Crusaders are coming around.

Willard calls the Brown game a "good win", adding:

It was a good feeling, exhaling after the game, giving the guys the next two days off to prepare and heal, and approaching exam week with still a lot of unanswered basketball questions, but with positive anticipation of getting to the semester vacation seeing at least some progress.

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In a look back at March 2005 as part of its year in review series, Deadspin.com includes:

March 18: Stunning most of college basketball -- as well as parts of Turkey -- Bucknell stuns Kansas in the NCAA tournament. The loss is so shocking that even Bill Self's toupee stands on end.

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It's another Hoop Time exclusive, the first interview (that we know of) with American's Paulius Joneliunas, the 6-11 Lithuanian transfer from South Carolina who becomes eligible for AU's bext game (Dec. 23 at Maryland).

We caught up with Paulius after the AU-Towson game for five quick questions:

HT: This is your second semester of sitting on the sidelines. How difficult has that been?

PJ: It’s really difficult. When I saw the MCI Center game, it was even more difficult. I just wanted to go help my teammates rebound and play defense—any way I can.

HT: What do you see from the sidelines that you will be able to fix or make better when you become eligible?

PJ: I hope I can bring some rebounding, double digit rebounds, play good post defense, scoring down low, whatever it takes.

HT: Last year we saw you shooting around a little after the Holy Cross-AU women’s game. You were shooting a lot of threes. Is that a big part of your game?

PJ: Usually I don’t set for jump shots. I like to take it down low in the post, jump hook, stuff like that. You know, big guys’ moves. I can shoot a jumper, too. But not a three-pointer, though.

HT: Looking around the league, at some of the big men. You got to watch them last season, what did you see?

PJ: McNaughton, he is a really good player. I don’t really remember the other guys, but I can see there is a battle in the paint. That is what I am looking for.

HT: The first half tonight, everything was from the outside. Did you wish you could get in there to give AU more of a low post presence?

PJ: Oh yeah, I can’t wait to get back. I just want to help the team. It is hard to sit on the bench and see them struggling. I just want to help them anyway I can.

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A little holiday season treat for the recruitniks out there.

From a FOXSports.com piece headlined "Are you ready for the Class of 2008? We are!":

Tyrone Nash, an improving 6-7 forward from Lawrence Woodmere High School in N.Y., continues to pick up recruiting interest from division one schools. Nash, who may decide to go to prep school next season to improve his overall game, is coached by Jeff Weiss, who has a very good reputation in New York as a head coach and teacher.

Bucknell evaluated Nash this past week. Yes, the Bucknell that has upset several top ranked college teams over the past few years. In fact, it was Bucknell that upended Syracuse this season.

Purdue is also expected to come into New York and take a serious look at Nash. It's likely the visit will take place over the next couple of weeks. Dartmouth has already watched Nash play and even schools like St. John's are keeping a careful eye on Nash's progress this season.

Nash, according to reporter Brian Towey, has not made a total commitment yet to a year on the prep level. So colleges will have to keep in touch with Nash in case he decides to change his mind and make a commitment this season. Nash is an excellent student so he is already academically eligible.

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Former Bucknell player Ben Slater has surfaced at Division II Goldey-Beacom. Here's a note from story in the Wilmington News-Journal:

The Goldey-Beacom College men's basketball team is having success early in the Division II basketball season.

The Lightning men, under third-year coach Chuck Hammond, were 3-2 after five games. Senior forward Ben Slater, a 6-6 transfer from Division I Bucknell, had 18 points and 10 rebounds in a 74-65 overtime loss to Philadelphia University on Dec. 6.

Slater played three years at Bucknell, averaging 3.2 points while playing over 15 minutes per game in 71 games, including 4 starts.

Slater left the Bison prior to the 2003-2004 season. He shows up in Goldey-Beacom's stats from last season as having played two games. It also mentions in his profile that Slater working on his MBA.

A reasonable guess would be that Slater must have been injured last season and gained a medical redshirt to play this year, although Goldey-Beacom's Web site is thin on details. They don't even have current year stats posted, though they do have boxscores from the games thus far, from which we calculated Slater is averaging 14 points and 8 rebounds per game.
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What did DePaul's win last night at Wake Forest mean for Bucknell? According to the blogospehere's latest sellout and math whiz Ken Pomeroy, it boosted the Bison's RPI to 6.

The next highest RPI in the league is American at 122. Holy Cross (140) is the only other team in the top 200. Lehigh currently has the league's lowest ranking at 271. Army, which spent last season in the 300s, is currently holding down the 246 spot.

Overall, the Patriot League ranks 17th among the 31 conferences.

Patriot League RPI breakdown

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Jen Toland of the Worcester Telegram&Gazette checks in this morning with a piece on Kevin Hamilton and the Holy Cross Crusaders' upcoming trip to Puerto Rico.

Toland says:HC coach Ralph Willard calls this week of practice "Basketball 101." It's back to the fundamentals, and "reinforcing things over and over," Hamilton said.We realize HC fans have been spoiled in recent seasons. But really, what has happened to the Crusaders this season is not unfamiliar to others around the league. Teams having winning records in non-conference play have been the exception, not the norm, in the league.

But given Hamilton's health woes, which are well-documented in Toland's story, and the reliance on freshmen to carry a significant load, HC's 4-4 record is actually pretty decent.

Without a healthy Pat Doherty, depth will be an issue for the Crusaders. But in league play, it will be less a factor. Other than Bucknell, and maybe Navy (which runs waves of people at you), who else in the Patriot goes any deeper?
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From: (DELETED)@lehigh.edu
To: HoopTime@HoopTimeOnline.com
Subject: Academics

How quickly you forget the academic status of Bucknell's own Charles Lee while you take a shot at Lehigh and Joe Knight. Lee had to sit out pretty much an entire season, Joe Knight will be back soon. I guess you prefer forgot you own team's shortcomings when it comes to academics.

Out of courtesy, we tried replying to the e-mail first, before publicly posting it and our response. That message came back undeliverable.

Hopefully the person who sent it will see this:

We have already addressed this whole "your own team" stuff, no need to rehash that.

As for Charles Lee's academic stats as a freshman and Joe Knight's ongoing saga, there is simply no comparison. Apples and oranges, as they say.

In Lee's freshman season, Pat Flannery held him out of action the final 19 games so he could concentrate on academics. It is important to note that Lee was eligible by both Bucknell and NCAA standards.

Flannery has a long history of handling freshmen in that manner. Realizing the difficulties some kids have adjusting to the academic challenges of a school like Bucknell, he oft opts to make a short-term sacrifice of having a kid on the court for the long-term gain of keeping a kid on track academically.

Lee is certainly not the only student at a Patriot League school to have found the adjustment from high school challenging. But at no time has anyone suggested that
Lee did not fit the academic profile at Bucknell. Nobody has ever accused Bucknell of letting a kid in who did not have the academic credentials necessary to get admitted if he did not play a sport.

Certainly Lee did not leave a "safety school," spend a year at a community college and then show up at Bucknell.

Remember, as it says on the league's Web site:

The Patriot League, which was founded on the principles of admitting athletes who are academically representative of their class.

Maybe Knight really is representative of the typical Lehigh student. Maybe there are non-athletes at Lehigh who followed that same path.

Looking at Lehigh's own Web site, though, we doubt it. According to the school's site, for transfer students:

Lehigh prefers at least one full year of college experience and a cumulative grade point average of 3.25.

Lehigh has said during his year at a community college in Texas, Knight got over a 3.0. So let's do some speculative math here. We will assume that Knight averaged 15 credits (5 courses) per semester at High Point. Aan in the holiday spirit, let's be generous. Let's assume he had a 2.5 GPA there. And let's say, for the sake of argument, that Knight kicked things up a couple notches in those community college classes. Let's say he took 18 credits each semester (6 courses) with a 3.5 GPA. That comes out to an overall GPA of 2.875. Not horrible by any stretch, but nowhere close to the 3.25 the school says is preferred.

The school's site also says:

All students must be in good standing with their previous college to be eligible for admission to Lehigh.

I suppose it is open to interpretation how that applies to someone who leaves a less-demanding four-year school due to grades, then spends a year taking community college courses.

Less vague is the language in Lehigh's course catalog:

The academic performance at the college level is the primary focus when giving consideration to admission.

Candidates who have been dropped for poor scholarship, or who are not in good standing, or who have been released for disciplinary reasons are not eligible for admission.

Look, as we have said before, we are all for people getting second chances. We are not saying Knight is not bright enough to handle the coursework at Lehigh. All we are asking is is Knight's academic credentials would have gotten him into Lehigh if he was not an extremely talented basketball player seems ludicrous.

Keep in mind, athletic scholarships are still a new concept in the Patriot League. Across the Lehigh Valley at Lafayette, they don't even offer them yet. A big part of the reason Lafayette does not have scholarships and that schools like Bucknell and Colgate were slow to go the scholarship route is because critics were worried this was what was going to happen.

The whole concept of the Patriot League is supposed to be that you can do things right and still be competitive in athletics. When you throw out that concept, there is little to separate the Patriot from the MAACs, NECs and America Easts. Aside from some of those oldtimers in Worcester who constantly whine about Holy Cross' decision to join the league, we don't know anybody who would want that.
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To a lot of folks, the fact that Bruce Grooms is the first black commandant in the Naval academy's 160-year history is big news.

Here at Hoop Time, we don't look at things as black and white. To us, what really makes Grooms' appointment newsworthy is the fact that Grooms was a three-year letter winner and captain of Navy's 1980 team.
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Brian Bennett of the Louisville Courier-Journal makes a couple mentions of Bucknell is his story today on the rise of the mid-majors. Among his observations:

Nevada's Nick Fazekas, Pacific's Christian Maraker and Bucknell's Chris McNaughton are heads and shoulders better than anyone on Kentucky's front line.

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(Originally posted 12:43 a.m., Updated 8:23 a.m.)

That's right, it's a sweep. And about time, too.

Our crackerjack research department did a quick check, and best we can tell, the last time more than no Patriot League team lost on a night when at least two were in non-conference action was over two years ago.

At least that is how far back you have to go to find league teams batting 1.000 against Division I foes.

If you count games with Division 3 opponents, then you only need go back as far as Dec. 22 of last year, when Bucknell beat Niagara and Lafayette downed Moravian.

Lehigh and Lafayette also swept a pair from two D3s on Dec. 17, 2003 (Lafayette over Lycoming, Lehigh over Delaware Valley).

But to find the last night when the league went 2-0 against real opponents, you'd need to go back to Dec. 8, 2003, the night Lehigh won 60-57 at Columbia and America won 57-53 at Howard.

Must be something to do with Howard, because the Bison were on the short end against AU again last night. Coupled with Lehigh's win over visiting Monmouth, it sends the league into finals on a high note.

American 72, Howard 60 -- Those crazy AU kids up to their second half shenanigans again. Through eight games so far, AU has scored more points in the second half five times. They were also even once, scoring 41 each half in the opener at Washington. In those eight games, AU is averaging better than 8 points more in the second half of games than the first.

This time it was a 9-0 run at the start of the second half that gave the Eagles the lead after they went to the break down 2.

In the win against Towson Saturday, American's strong second half came from the offense. The Eagles shot 50 percent after the intermission in that one, even better from the arc.

Against Howard it was the defense that was different in the second half. After letting Howard shoot 51.9 percent the first 20 minutes, AU locked down on defense and held the Bison to 18.5 percent (5-27) in the second.

That was not all that was different. One game after erupting for 6 treys and 25 points against Towson, AU freshman Garrison Carr was held to 4 points on a 1-for-7 effort from the floor. He was 0-4 from 3-point range.

The battle of the vertically challenged went to American frosh Derrick Mercer, though certainly not be knockout. The 5-9 (or so they say) Mercer was 1-1 and made a free throw to finish with 3 points while turning it over 5 times and dishing 4 assists. Not a lot, but better than Howard's 5-6 senior Louis Ford, who wore an 0-7 collar with 3 assists, 2 turnovers and 3 steals.

Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post reports it was the first time in his college career that Ford has gone scoreless.

Andre Ingram looks like he has broken out of the little slump he was in, building on his strong second half against Towson with a 7-14, 21 point showing. Brayden Billbe in double figures again with 14.

It's win number three in a row for the Eagles, all at home. They started the season with six games away from Bender, all losses.

Another nugget from the Post story:

The reasons for American's turnaround are many, and a more forgiving schedule is certainly one of them. The Eagles, who don't use any seniors in their regular rotation, began the year with one of the nastiest opening stretches in the nation. Only 20 Division I teams were undefeated before last night, and American had lost to three of them. Their first six games -- all losses away from Bender Arena -- came against opponents that are a combined 32-5.

The Eagles return to action Dec. 23 at Maryland.

Box score

Lehigh 71, Monmouth 57 -- Jose Olivero with a 10-assist, 14-point double-double to lead Lehigh. It is the first time this season the Mountain Hawks have won two straight.

Lehigh shot 50 percent from the field, but defense was the key. Monmouth shot just 38 percent from the field, the sixth time in seven games, Lehigh held an opponent to 38 percent or less.

Bryan White was 9-13 for a team-high 18 points for Lehigh. Kyle Neptune added 16.

The Asbury Park Press reports it was an ugly affair, with the two teams combining for 45 turnovers, 25 of those by Monmouth. Apparently the Lehigh Valley papers couldn't be bothered to cover this one, so you will have to be content with that visiting team story.

Box score

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The president of the sophomore class at Lehigh apparently has a unique method for getting ready for finals.

According to this AP story, Greg Hogan, a 19-year-old student from northeast Ohio, handed a note to a teller at a Wachovia Bank branch around 3 p.m. Friday, saying he had a gun and wanted money, authorities said.

One of his fraternity brothers "described Hogan as 'very energetic,' the sort of student who would cheer on the college football team wearing body paint."

No, it is not a basketball story. But somehow we just figured you would want to know.
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We have never put much faith in the polls. Yeah, sure, we post them here each Monday. But that is for informational purposes only. It is certainly not an endorsement.

We know how these things work. In the AP poll, a bunch of writers vote. In the coaches poll, the sports information directors do the voting (or at least a good portion of it). Even if the coaches actually fill out their own ballots, they suffer from the same handicap the writers do. Nobody who votes in these things actually sees most of the teams they vote on.

The AP poll is weighted heavily with writers from large papers that cover the major players from the BCS conferences. The panel for the coaches poll, surprisingly, is heavily weighted with guys from mid-major schools.

It does not matter. None of these voters actually get to see many games outside of the ones the teams they coach or cover play. If they do, it is on television, which usually means teams from the major conferences.

It creates a bias that is all but impossible for a mid-major to overcome.

Don't believe it? How else do you explain Bucknell falling in both polls this week after losing a tough game to No. 3 (in both polls) Villanova. Evidently, beating Bucknell impressed the voters. Six other unbeaten teams are still ranked lower than 'Nova, which climbed a spot in both polls.

Yet Bucknell fell six spots in the USA Today/ESPN poll and four spots in the AP poll.

The Bison are now eighth among others receiving votes in the coaches poll, fifth in the AP.

Somebody has to explain to us how Indiana (5-2), whose only "quality" win came over an overrated Kentucky team, can lose to Indiana State and stay in the top 25? And don't say because they beat Kentucky. Kentucky (6-3) has beaten one team that could be considered even a little impressive-- West Virginia. The rest of the wins came over the likes of South Dakota State, Lipscomb, Liberty, High Point and Georgia State. Yet Kentucky is ranked in both polls.

So is Iowa (7-3), despite losses last week to Northern Iowa and Iowa State. Iowa's wins other than Kentucky? Valparaiso, Fairfield, Texas-San Antonio, Maryland-Eastern Shore, North Carolina State and Colgate.

Maryland has two losses and only one quality win, Boston College. Boston College in turn also has two losses and a win over Oklahoma State is the only thing close to a quality W for the Eagles. Yet both the Terps and BC are ranked.

Yet Bucknell, with wins over Syracuse and DePaul -- on the road, and one loss against the No. 3 team in the nation, not only is not ranked, but actually lost votes this week.

Bucknell's loss to Villanova did not hurt them in the College Insider Mid-Major Poll. Bucknell held on to third in those rankings, actually gaining 14 more points (though previous No. 4 Northern Iowa did leapfrog BU after beating Iowa).

It apparently did not hurt them with Dick "Hoops" Weiss of the New York Daily News, either. Weiss lists Bucknell as his No. 23 team in a column today.
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Monmouth at LEHIGH 7 p.m.: Hawks vs. Hawks when 1-6 Monmouth comes to town. Mascots are not all these two have in common. Both are also without the services of their starting point guard. Senior Tyler Azzarelli, who started 90 straight games for Monmouth, went down with a stress fracture in his foot after two games. Lehigh's Joe Knight remains ineligible until Jan. 11 due to an NCAA ruling about his transfer credits.

Monmouth has played a decent schedule and four of the six losses were by single-digit margins. Only in a loss to Seton Hall of the Big East has Monmouth not been competitive.

The Hawks, who prefer a Princeton=style of halfcourt offense, have been undermanned. In addition to missing Azzarelli, four other players were suspended for a violation of team rules and have been rotating, two sitting out each game so as to not leave the team completely shorthanded. Nothing on the Monmouth site indicates how long that will continue or who might miss tonight's game.

If 7-2 work-in-progress junior John Bunch is available (he is one of the four serving the suspensions), there is a good chance we could see a matchup of two 7-footers when Lehigh's 7-0 freshman John Gourlay is on the floor.Lehigh notes | Monmouth Web site | USA Today matchup

Howard at AMERICAN 7:30 p.m.: Ater starting the season 0-6, all on the road, American can extend its win streak to three in a row, all at home, with a win over the Bison of the MEAC. Howard knows a little about losing streaks, too. The Bison's win Saturday over Maryland-Eastern Shore came in their first home game of the season and snapped a 21-game losing streak that dated back to early January.

Junior guard Daryl Hudson (6-4) leads Howard in scoring (13.2 ppg) and rebounding. Also averaging in double figures is Darek Mitchell, a 6-0 guard who averages 10.6 ppg.

One matchup that should be fun to watch will be American's freshman point guard Derrick Mercer and Howard's senior Louis Ford. Ford will be a handful for the freshman. He averages 9.8 points, 6.2 assists and nearly 3 steals per game. But the matchup we want a report on is not how Ford and Mercer compare statistically. What we want to know is if Mercer, who is listed at 5-8, is actually two inches taller than Ford, who is listed at 5-6.
AU notes | Howard Web site | USA Today matchup | AU radio
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News, notes and reflections from the drive home following American's four-point win over Towson Saturday:

When you see American point guard Derrick Mercer for the first time, your first reaction is, “Who gave Gary Coleman a uniform?”

They list the freshman from Jersey City as 5-9 in the AU game program. You do understand that those program measurements are bullshit, right?

To say Mercer is small is to say A.U. basketball is overshadowed and overlooked in the D.C. area. You can try to pretend it is not so, but it is pretty obvious to everyone but the blind guy.

Garrison Carr is small, too, though even he looks big standing next to Mercer. If you saw him in street clothes, you’d never guess Carr was a college basketball player. Not even in Division 3. The kid just doesn’t look old enough to even be in college.

Forget his on court heroics. Four years from now AU fans will be able to look back at Carr and say “I remember the first time he shaved.”

Watch Carr shoot the ball, though, and he looks a little older. Carr has a veteran’s poise around the arc, never rushing his shots, never passing up an open look or hesitating to fire when it is there.

Carr was dialed in against Towson, knocking down four three-pointers in quick succession to bring AU back from 10 down in the first half to a 31-30 lead. It was all catch-and-shoot stuff. No beating guys off the dribble. But Towson still could not manage to get a hand in his face most of the night.

Just as Carr doesn’t play young, Mercer hardly plays small. Mercer has two gears, fast and turbo. He doesn’t spend as lot of time in fast. With a solid handle and a fearless demeanor, Mercer finds seems between the trees and darts through them with abandon.

“He is too small to get himself stuck down that low,” you think when he gets double teamed down on the low block by a pair of guys that would make three of him.

Then Mercer makes a little wrap around shuttle pass to Brayden Billbe for an easy layup.

Time and time again Mercer drove the lane and passed off. He finished with six assists. At least two or three of his four turnovers came when AU teammates were unable to get the handle on his creative dishes.

Rumor has it Mercer can finish, too. Saw little evidence of it against Towson, though. Mostly what you saw was Mercer penetrating, finding himself surrounded by big guys, then finding a way to dish to someone with the size to finish down low.

Between Mercer and Carr, the future looks bright for American’s backcourt.

It also looks awfully small. Only time will tell if the Eagles can get away with playing that small for long periods of time. With 6-11 Paulius Joneliunas unavailable until after finals, the Eagles are already extremely size challenged.

How small is AU? Consider this: When Linas Lekavicius comes off the bench to give Mercer a break, AU actually is going with a bigger lineup by subbing in a guy who is not even 6-feet tall.

At one point in the second half, AU actually had 6-3 Andre Ingram playing the four for a short stretch when Jeff Jones went small (of course by definition, right now every time Billbe takes a rest, Jones has to “go small”).

Right now, Carr plays the two, coming in to replace 6-2 sophomore Arydas Eitutavicius. But you have to wonder how much Jones will be able to get away with playing Carr and Mercer together. Not just this year, but over the next four.

Neither guy is expecting a growth spurt. As good as both guy seems to be, as much potential as they appear to have, it is hard to imagine being able to win at the Division 1 level when you run out a 5-9, 5-11 backcourt every night.

At least one of the two is going to have to become much better at scoring off penetration, too. Won't take long for film to ciruclate and coaches to notice that the way to stop Carr and Mercer is to put someone taller, which for most teams means anybody on their roster, on the little guys to take away their jumper.

Even then, it seems unlikely the two American freshmen will evolve into aany kind of Hamilton-Simmons or Bettencourt-Lee sort of duo.

Other observations from an afternoon visit to the nation’s capital:

Even in a small building like Bender, the announced crowd of 1,313 looked sparse. We didn’t count the fans on hand, but we could have. And we doubt we’d have had to use near as many fingers as the guys who came up with that announced figure.

The Screaming Eagles are badly in need of reinforcements. Their ranks appear to have fallen to Lehigh-like levels. And who are those dudes anyhow? They look like they were all in the pep club in high school. If not for those blue T-shirts, you’d take one look at the whole lot and figure the chess team must have gotten lost on the way to a match. There is a reason why they are here and almost no other American students are – the others can get dates.

Even if they could play extras in the next Revenge of the Nerds remake, those blue-shirted Screaming Eagles do deserve credit for their spirit. With a small crowd made up of mostly family members and girlfriends of players, a dozen fans working together can be certainly be heard. If you could give the Blue Shirts a Christmas present, it would be the same we’d give the guys who paint L-E-H-I-G-H on their shirtless chests night after night in drafty Stabler Arena. Just one night in their college career, we’d give them a chance to be a part of a college basketball crowd like the one in Sojka for the BU-Villanova game. Every basketball fan deserves a chance to see their team in that kind of atmosphere.

On hand for the game, a visiting high school team from South Africa. From what they displayed while taking part in one of the timeout on-court fans contests, we’d guess Jones is not recruiting any of them.

Jones’ recruiting seems to be taking more of a domestic turn. All five of this year’s freshmen are from the U.S.

According to Matt B. of the Patriot League Hoops Blog, AU’s apparent emphasis on foreign recruits was the work of former assistant coach Ryan (son of Dave) Odom. Odom is now an assistant at Virginia Tech, where the sophomore class includes kids from Mali, Puerto Rico and The Netherlands.

By the way, for those who might question Matt's dedication to his beloved A.U. Eagles, you should know that not only was he one of the few folks not related to a player to show up Saturday, but he also stayed after the men's game for the whole AU women vs. Penn affair.

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(Originally posted: Saturday, 9:25 p.m., updated 9:06 a.m.)

In what is beginning to look a lot like a rock, paper, scissors kind of competition, the Patriot League pulls out to a two-game lead in the season series against Ivy League teams with a split of two Patriot-Ivy matchups. Ten more matchups between the two leagues remain.

Meanwhile, you aill have to forgive the Express-Times and the Morning Call for their lack of coverage of the Lehigh and Lafayette games. Both papers ran only AP summaries this morning. Both papers' staffs were likely prettyy consumed with the Pa. high school state football championships, which featured Lehigh Valley teams in the AA and AAAA games Saturday.

Meanwhile, under the big top in Syracuse:

Syracuse 58, Colgate 35 -- No second strike for Patriot League lightning in the Carrier Dome, though for a little while anyhow they did have to post storm warnings in Salt City.

From the AP story:

Syracuse led only 22-18 at halftime and the Raiders seemed poised to make a game of it when Alvin Reed hit a fallaway jumper in the first minute of the second period.

The Orange, playing their first game in a week, responded with a 27-2 run, holding the Raiders without a basket for nearly nine minutes to take command. Colgate shot 29.8 percent for the game and committed 23 turnovers.

Reed was the only Colgate player in double figures, finishing with 11. The 35 points by the Raiders were the fewest ever scored by an opponent at the Dome.

It did not help matters any that Colgate's most effective inside player, Kendall Chones, reinjured his ankle in the first half. Chones toughed out 20 minutes, but had only one shot.

Box score

Rochester Democrat&Chronicle

The Daily Orange

Syracuse.com photo gallery

Syracuse Post-Standard

Columbia 71, Lafayette 67 -- Lafayette coach Fran O'Hanlon must be going nuts trying to figure out a way to get his teams to start the game the way they finish it.

At Columbia Saturday, the Leopards spotted Columbia an 18-point lead, then battled back to cut it to 4 before finally succumbing. In three of their last four games, the 'Pards have spotted the opposition an edge with slow starts.

Lafayette shot 27.3 (6-22) from the field in the first half, including 0-9 from 3-point range. Even though they held Columbia to 11-33 (33.3 percent) shooting in the half, the Leopards still trailed 28-20 at the break.

The Leopards' offense was far more effective after the intermission. The problem was, so was Columbia's. The Leopards hit 15-29 (51.7 percent) in the second half, including 6 3-pointers. Columbia went 13-24 (54.2 percent).

Looking for a single line in the box score to blame the loss on? It probably comes under rebounding. Columbia held a 24-rebound advantage (46-22) overall, and grabbed 22 offensive rebounds. While the box score posted on Lafayette's Web site doesn't break it down, you can be fairly certain that with 22 offensive boards, Columbia would almost certainly have scored enough second-chance points to make the difference in a 4-point game.

Box score

AP story

Lehigh 67, Harvard 56 -- Lehigh held Harvard to 35.7 percent shooting and outrebounded the Crimson 42-30 to hand the visitors from Mass. their third loss in a row. Kyle Neptune was 9-16 from the field, including 3 treys, to lead Lehigh with 24 points.

Box score

AP story

Harvard Crimson

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Memo to the rest of the league: Don't leave Garrison Carr open.

Not that anybody can be expected to lose track of American's precocious freshman after they see tape of him open up a 5-11 can of whoop ass on the visiting Towson Tigers.

Carr came off the bench in the first half and almost singlehandedly willed AU back into a game in which they trailed by 10 points early and appeared about to be blown out of their own gym. It's hard to imagine where AU would have been at the end of the first half without Carr, who scored just under half (14) of AU's 31 first half points. It is even harder to imagine the Eagles pulling out the 74-70 win.

Carr hit 4 of his first 6 shots, all from 3-point range, finishing with 14 in the first half. All but one on catch-and-shoot jumpers while Towson sat back in a zone and watched him firet. Not until well into the second half did Towson manage to get a hand in Carr's face. By the time Towson's 6-4 swingman Marc Pratt came to help when Carr popped off a screen on the left side of the arc and blocked Carr's shot from the foul line extended with 7:47 to play, it was too late. By then Carr had put a 25-point hurting on the Tigers and AU had built a double-digits lead.

Led by Carr's six treys, American hit a school record 15 threes in the win. None of the Eagles treys came in the final five minutes. But they certainly set the table for the three layups that accounted for all of AU's offensive production in the final 5:20.

"The team as a whole got more easy shots because of how Garrison was knocking them down," said AU's Andre Ingram, himself a beneficiary of the laxative effect Carr had on Towson's defense. After being hounded and hassled into a 1-for-6 first half, Ingram knocked down four treys in the second half, finishing with 15 points.

"Garrison hit so many early, they started boxing him. That left people like me and Arvydas (Eitutavicius) open more," Ingram said.

It also opened things up in the post a little. After managing only 4 points in the paint the first half, AU scored 14 inside in the second, including a dunk and a layup by 6-10 junior Brayden Billbe in the final 1:30 after Towson had battled back to get within 2 points of the lead. Those two buckets gave Billbe, AU's leading scorer coming in, his sixth double figures game in eight starts.

That AU was in the game when it reached the second half would have been a surprise to anyone who watched the first five minutes. Towson jumped out to a quick 10-point lead by hitting 6 of the first 7 shots it took. Three of those were three-pointers, the lone miss was rebounded and put back. The Tigers were on a roll.

They might have stayed on a roll, too, if not for two things.

First, like A.U., Towson got next to nothing inside in the first half. The 4 points Towson scored in the paint all came on putbacks. Not once were they successful going inside off their halfcourt offense. After hitting 6 of its first eight shots, including 3-4 from the arc, Towson seemed to think the perimeter jump shot was the only weapon it needed to use.

The problem for the Tigers was the longer the half went, the less the jumpers wanted to fall. At the 8:39 mark, Towson was barely still over 50 percent (10-19). By the break Towson's field goal percentage had dropped to 39.3 (11-28).

Given AU's first half offense, that still might have been enough to stay on top, had someone bothered guard Carr a little. The Eagles missed 10 of the first 13 shots they put up and shot only a little better the rest of the half, finishing at 33 percent. The Eagle also turned it over 10 times. Take away Carr, and the rest of American's roster shot 24 percent (6-25) in the first half.

Still nobody got a hand in Carr's face.

"We were certainly trying to. They did an excellent job of finding seams in the zone and getting the ball to him," said Towson coach Pat Kennedy.

The win was AU's second straight, both at home, after starting the year with six straight losses, all on the road. The Eagles will shoot for No. 3 in a row when they host cross-city rivals Howard Monday night before taking an 11-day break for finals.

NOTES: AU held a commanding 41-28 advantage on the boards . . . It was the third time this season AU won the battle on the glass . . . AU's freshman point guard, Derrick Mercer finished with 6 assists and 4 turnovers. His assists to turnovers ratio is likely to improve once his teammates get used to catching some of the nifty passes the 5-9 waterbug dishes off . . . as tough as it is to spell the last name of AU guard Arvydas Eitulavicius, it sounded even more difficult to pronounce for the Towson radio crew seated next door on press row . . . The Towson radio crew could also bemoaning the fact that the Tigers could not send AU to the line in the final moments to try to stretch the game because they had made enough fouls to put AU in the one-and-one ... "If you have three fouls to give with less than a minute to go, you probably have not been playing very aggressive defense," said one of the announcers . . . The same might have been said for AU, which had only 5 second half personals . . . Combined with a first half in which Towson committed 3 personals and AU 4, not a single one-and-one was shot all afternoon . . . Given that both teams shot better than 50 percent from the floor in the second half, that radio guy might have been right about the lack of aggressive defense.

Box score

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Harvard at LEHIGH 1 p.m.: Lehigh's Web site boasts:

Lehigh’s defense is once again among the stingiest in the entire Patriot League. The Mountain Hawks are tied for first in the league with Bucknell, allowing opponents to hit on only .397 percent of their field goal attempts

Problem is, the Hawks are shooting even worse (37.6). That is dead last in the league.

Harvard had trouble shooting the ball against Boston U. Tuesday night, making just 34 percent of its shots in a 72-63 loss. It was Harvard's second straight loss after opening the season with five wins.Lehigh notes | Harvard notes | USA Today matchup

Towson at AMERICAN 1:30 p.m.: American looks for its second straight win at home after opening the season with a six game losing streak, all on the road.

Towson would seem to be the team AU would want coming to town when the Eagles try to get on a roll. American has not lost to the Tigers since 1997 and is 21-4 all-time against its former mates from the Colonial Athletic Conference. That is a little deceptive, though, since Towson has won three of the last five meetings.

The 3-3 Tigers have not won on the road. The three wins have come against the likes of Morgan State, UMBC and William and Mary. So it is hard to really get a feel for Pat Kennedy's club.

This ought to be a good test for Jeff Jones' youngsters, who could end the first semester on a three-game roll if they get past Towson with Howard coming cross town for a visit Monday.
AU notes | Towson notes | USA Today matchup | AU radio

LAFAYETTE at Columbia 2 p.m.: For a scouting report, we turn to Lafayette's game notes:

After opening the season with five straight wins, three of which were on the road, Columbia dropped a pair of decisions to start the month of December. The Lions fell to Army (12/2) and Wagner (12/6) and enter today's action aiming to improve on a 5-2 record. A pair of big men bolster a talented, mobile frontcourt that accounts for 41 percent of the Lion's scoring. Sophomore forward John Baumann is the only player to start all seven games and leads the Lions with 14.9 points a game. Knocking in 12.9 points per game is 6-9 center Ben Nwachukwu. A native of Nigeria, Nwachukwu is bringing down a team-high 7.1 boards. Also deep at the guard position, the Lions are hitting 42.9 percent from behind the arc. Senior guard Dalen Cuff has been a solid 57.1 percent (12-of-21) from long range in six starts.

Lafayette already has a road win against an Ivy (Princeton). Columbia already has a home loss against a Patriot (Army).
Lafayette notes | Columbia notes | USA Today matchup | Gametracker

COLGATE at Syracuse, 7 p.m.: The 158th meeting of the Orange and the Raiders. Syracuse has won 112 of those, including the last 39 in a row. Of course this is not your father's Orangemen. Last week Syracuse dropped completely out of the Top 25 and the Orange have already lost at home to another Patriot League team.

Sure, it would be easy to say "Yeah, but that was GKU." But Syracuse also had a tough time at home against Cornell and needed two overtimes to get past Manhattan. If ever there has been a non-Adonal Foyle season when Colgate had reason to feel good about its chances in the Dome, this would be it. If the colgate guards can light it up a little from the arc, this could be a ballgame.
Colgate notes (pdf) | Syracuse notes | USA Today matchup | Syracuse.com Orange hoops | 'Gate radio

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We are first to admit the site has been very Bucknell-centric thus far this season. The Bison are the only league team we have seen in person so far (though hopefully that will soon change) and it seems like every day there are links to things Bison.

That is not, as some e-mailers have suggested, because this site is run by Bucknell alums. We were not smart enough to get into Bucknell, nor rich enough to afford it, as an undergrad.

It is just that, at the moment, Bucknell is the big story in the league. We try to link to every story we find that we think would be of interest to Patriot League followers. Right now, there are a whole lot of stories being written about Bucknell. Just look at some of the links that follow.

We cannot help it if the Washington Post doesn't bother to cover American or Navy on a given night. It is not our fault that Tom Housenick writes second day columns on Bucknell while most games not one daily paper manages to find its way to Hamilton unless they are there for the hockey game that night.

It is not our fault when the national media start including mentions like this one from the DraftExpress.com Web site:

BUCKNELL was in Nowhere, but has since left there, at least part of the way. Their only loss on the year was to Villanova and they do have four road wins including one at Syracuse this season. The Bison are a tremendous team who returns the bulk of last year’s team that went to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. They will likely dominate the Patriot League this year and could even sneak into the rankings. They got pretty close before the Villanova game checking in at #27. Hopefully the voters won’t penalize them too much for losing to a top five team.

We can't stop Phil Kasiecki from putting stuff like this in his column on College Sports TV's Web site:

Bucknell is the mid-major to keep a close eye on. Last season's win over Kansas in the NCAA Tournament got this team its first big recognition, but that won't be the last. They return all but one reserve from that team, and they play a solid game together. Their earlier win over Syracuse shouldn't be a surprise, and no one should look at it as Syracuse losing the game. Similarly, Tuesday night's loss to Villanova is nothing to be ashamed of.

That national interest in Bucknell is why ESPN has jumped on the BU bandwagon. They saw it coming when they set up the Duke game and invited the Bison to the Bracket Buster ball (By the way, a big plus of BU's Bracket Buster inclusion, not only are the Bison looking like a team that will get one of coveted TV slots, but because they are set to travel for this year's Bracket Buster game, they get a back-end home game with the same opponent next season. That should mean a dandy mid-major marquee matchup in Sojka next season).

And while it is hardly as primo as a 9:30 p.m. slot after women's curling on College Sports TV, the ESPN 360 thing Tuesday night has gotten good reviews from people we have heard from. Kyle's bosses are even adding a repeat airing Wednesday evening on ESPNU.

By the way, if things go according to our tentative plans, by the time conference play opens Jan. 7, we expect to have seen every team in the league except Colgate and Army. Our pre-conference tour of league campuses begins tomorrow in our nation's capital.
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(Originally posted 8:49 a.m., additional commentary added at 11:04 a.m., after clearing the driveway of 8 inches of reminder of why I don't like to go to Hamilton)

Corky Blake reports in today's Express-Times:

Lehigh University senior guard Joe Knight will not return to the Mountain Hawks' lineup until Jan. 11 against Navy, the NCAA has ruled.

Corky has some details about the NCAA's reasoning. Apparently Lehigh was counting all Knight's credits, rather than just the ones that count towards the degree he is pursuing. It all comes under the NCAA's requirements for making progress towards a degree.

Blake also answers the nagging question: Why was Knight, who is from Tennessee, taking classes at a Texas community college after leaving High Point? Blake says Knight's parents live there.

For the first time in this saga, Lehigh has posted a public statement on the situation on its Web site.

Lehigh's position on the whole thing seems to be that they are the victims in the entire fiasco. Look at some of the language in the statement:

"Lehigh was quite surprised . . ."

". . . the cumbersome and time-consuming process . . . "

Hey, sure, the NCAA can come off as a big bully on a lot of issues. But this one seems pretty straight forward. Matter of fact, it seems so obvious to us, we are surprised supposedly smart people at a supposedly top academic institution would really be dumb enough to believe their own interpretation of the situation.

The NCAA bylaw that applies here reads:

The calculation of credit hours to meet this requirement [the cumulative credits required under the progress toward degree bylaw] shall be based upon hours earned or accepted for degree credit.

Now remember, we are talking about progress towards an actual degree. The whole idea of this rule is to prevent someone from spending four or five years at a school, maintaining an eligible GPA by taking nothing but classes like The Politics of Women* , Introduction to Canada*, or Raw Vision: Creativity and Ecstasy in the Work of Shamans, Mystics, and Artist Outsiders* while never actually coming close to graduating.

It seems to be pretty clear. For a credit to count as "progress towards an actual degree", it needs to be a "degree credit."

Lehigh tries to remove the context from the clause. In the release, they write:

Prior to his arrival at Lehigh as a transfer student, Joe Knight had completed 93 hours (credits). He has completed an additional 35 in his first year at Lehigh. Lehigh interpreted the bylaw such that Knight had met the provisions of the progress toward degree requirements because these were all credit hours that were “earned” even though some of those completed hours do not apply to the Lehigh degree program Knight is pursuing.

Lehigh felt comfortable that Knight’s overall college progress met the NCAA provisions defined by the bylaw, but submitted an official request for interpretation because Knight’s total number of credits toward his Lehigh degree was less than the number that would normally be expected for a fifth year student. Lehigh was quite surprised to learn of the differing interpretation and appealed the interpretation through the standard NCAA process. Throughout the cumbersome and time-consuming process, Lehigh chose to keep Knight out of competition. The decision to withhold his participation ultimately helped avoid further game penalties.

The NCAA has interpreted the language in the bylaw such that only the credits earned that are applicable to his Lehigh degree program can be used to fulfill his progress toward degree requirements, even though the specific language as written seems to indicate that credits “earned OR accepted for degree credit” would be applicable.

Lehigh might be "quite surprised" by the NCAA's interpretation of the rule, but we sure are not.

Lehigh wants to separate "earned" from "for degree credit." but OR is not capitalized in the bylaw. And it seems pretty clear, in the context of the bylaw, it means the credits can be earned or they can be accepted (transfer credits), but the ones that count must be "for degree credit." You cannot just take courses, you need to be progressing towards a degree.

Of course by Lehigh's accounting, Knight already has earned 128 credits. Most schools that is enough to give you a degree. Lehigh claims Knight will have earned his degree by June 2006, after the completion of one class in the first summer session. They also say at that time Knight will have 57 credits more than what was needed to graduate. Which certainly raises the question: What classes did Knight take that don't count towards his degree, yet were considered applicable towards meeting Lehigh's own stringent transfer admissions requirements?

Lehigh also mentions that they sought a review because Knight's total number of credits towards his Lehigh degree was "less than the number that would normally be expected for a fifth year student." Knight is a sociology major. When did that become a five-year program? What would normally be expected of a sociology major after four years would be grad school or a low-paying job.

At some point, Colgate's Chones brothers should be added to the discussion for a look at how the league treats community college years in the midst of a student-athlete's pursuit of a degree at a member school. Does that violate the "no redshirts other than medical" rule? If a kid struggles academically and takes a semester, or even a season, off from hoops to concentrate on their grades, they lose that season of eligibility. If they leave school, attend a community college, then return, the league seems to allow the fifth year eligibility.

For now, we will stick to the question of how Lehigh's handling of Knight's transfer fits the league's framework of student-athletes being academically representative of the student body.

Still unanswered is the question that really is the key to this whole situation as far as we are concerned: Why did Knight leave High Point and what were his grades when he left?

In other words, did Knight fit Lehigh's profile when he was admitted? Or did he get special admissions treatment because he was a talented point guard?

Seems to us the only way to ever really resolve this who question is to quit releasing statements and start releasing Knight's transcripts.
* Actual Lehigh course offerings

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(Originally posted Thursday night, updated 8:36 a.m.)

VMI 72, Army 63 -- Just when you are ready to say "Hey, maybe Army really is getting better," the Black Knights lay an egg the size of Christl Arena. Three weeks ago, Army went down to VMI and brought back a 53-49 win. This time around, they scored 51 points in one half alone, at home, and got beat by a team that had not beaten another DI team yet this season.

It was deja vu all over again for the Black Knights, who scored only 12 points in the first half, digging a 21-point hole that even the 51-point second half could not help them out of. As an aside, you might be interested in knowing last season Army didn't even score more than 51 points the entire game in nine of its outings.

Army was lucky to have the 12 points it did manage in the first half. They made only three shots in the half (3-26, 11.5 percent -- 1-10 from three-point range).

Even though they shot 50 percent from the field in the second half, Army was never really back in the game. The Black Knights managed to get the deficit down to single digits a few times, but most of the second half VMI's lead was in the teens.

Jimmy Sewell, who started at center early in the season, including the win at VMI, saw his minutes down to 4 against the Keydets this time around. Colin Harris, a 6-6 forward, was the only Army player taller than 6-5 to play more than 10 minutes.

Since these are not Villanova guards we are talking about, the struggles Army is having are probably predictable. The Knights were outrebounded 38-31, a margin that is deceptively close because of Army's 13 offensive rebounds. When you miss 19 three-point tries, there are bound to be a bunch of long caroms that are chased down by the perimeter people. VMI blocked 5 Army shots.

Obviously, this is not a result that shows Army making progress, despite having already doubled its win total against Division I teams from last season.

Matt Bell with 28 to lead all scorers. Bell was 9-20 with 5 treys.

Box score

AP story

Navy 73, Morgan State 47 -- According to Paul McMullen in the Baltimore Sun:

Navy appears hungry and ready to fatten its record.

The Midshipmen had runs of 20-2 in the first half and 14-0 in the second to rout Morgan State, 73-47, at Hill Field House last night. It was the second win in four nights over a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference team for Navy, which plays in the Patriot League, and its most lopsided on the road since February 2000.

The remainder of Navy's December schedule includes two Division III opponents, two from the Ivy League and The Citadel. Billy Lange figures to be disappointed if his team (2-4) doesn't have a winning record come 2006.

Of course the question is not what will the Mids record be when league play opens, but rather how ready will they be to face league competition, which is definitely tougher than those MEAC, D-3 and Ivy teams the young Navy squad is teething on.

Adding to that challenge, word from Annapolis is that Corey Johnson had knee surgery Tuesday and could be done for the year. Freshman Clif Colbert has been averaging in double figures since Johnson's injury, but the jury is out on how he will fare playing against some of the veteran guards in the Patriot League. Guys like Torey Thomas, Abe Badmus, Alvin Reed and Juco JOe Knight can make life pretty rough for a freshman.

One thing for sure, the Mids will need to figure out how to take better care of the ball. When you have just 6 assists and 20 turnovers in a game you win by 26 points, that raises some red flags.

The Mids got this win with defense. Navy shot only 38.5 percent for the game, a strong second half (50 percent) masking a 28 percent first half that would leave Navy buried against better competition.

On the other hand, if Navy can hold other opponents to 28 percent all night like they did against Morgan State, then the Mids will be very competitive, even when they shoot poorly themselves. It also helps when you get 20 offensive rebounds and hold a 52-25 edge overall on the boards.

Box score

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Patriot League scoreboards
ESPN | CBS Sportsline | PennLive.com | Yahoo! | Mid-Majority

VMI at ARMY 5:30 p.m.: Army has gone 1-3 since beating the Keydets in Virginia (53-49) three weeks ago. VMI comes in on a two-game win streak --- it's only wins thus far. That does not exactly mean the Keydets are on a roll. The wins came at home against Division III Ferrum and some NAIA five from what is known as the Univerty of Virginia's College at Wise.
Army notes (pdf) | VMI Web site | USA Today matchup | Gametracker

NAVY at Morgan State 7 p.m.: Morgan State comes in 0-7, but one-win Navy best not get overconfident. Four of Morgan State's losses came at the hands of the likes of Washington, Miami (Fla.), Virginia Tech and UNC-Greensboro. And all 7 losses have come on the road. The Midshipmen need just to look at last night's American game to see what a difference finally playing at home can make for a team.
Navy notes (pdf) | Morgan State notes | USA Today matchup | Navy radio
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It's Big Time Kyle, who looks a whole lot like smalltime Kyle, but gets paid better, filing a report on the Bucknell-Villanova game for the WWLIS. So what if ESPN didn't post the damned thing until 6 o'clock last night? Be glad they are not making you pay for it.

Also checking in with an aftermath column is Tom Housenick, the Bucknell beat writer for the Daily Item. Tom mentions:

At least 60 media credentials were issued for that night’s basketball game, from the New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer to the several regional newspapers suddenly on the Bison bandwagon. In all, more credentials were issued for this men’s contest than are generally given for the Patriot League postseason tournament.

Which begs the question: How many of those 60 were there to actually cover the game? Because we counted about a dozen folks at the postgame press conference. Of course that number includes the crew for ESPN 360, a camera man and talking head for the Scranton TV stations who needed a campus map to find Sojka. Then there were at least three dudes from the campus newspaper, which probably won't even publish another edition until spring semester.

Still, it was definitely more media than Bucknell is accustomed to having on hand and sports information guy Jon Terry and his staff did a fine job handling the horde. A special thanks too, for the BU IT folks who have made Sojka a wi-fi hotspot, enabling our live gameblogging experiement.

One other guy checking in today with a follow to the BU-VU game is Gordie Jones of the Morning Call. Imagine the love Lehigh fans down in the valley must feel this morning when they pick up their paper and find a column about Bucknell and no coverage of the Lehigh-Sacred Heart game.

In advance of the Colgate-Syracuse game, the Chones boys are all the rage in Salt City. There are stories about them in the Syracuse Post-Standard and the Daily Orange.

Here's what we found most interesting in the Post-Standard piece:

It paid off when they returned to the Red Raiders last January. They enrolled in school, redshirted the season and returned to practice. Although Kyle and Kendall were ecstatic to be back with the team, it was a hard adjustment to practice every day and then sit out of games.

We added the emphasis to the word "redshirted."

Did we miss something? When did the Patriot League start allowing non-medical redshirt years?

Here all along we figured the lack of a reaction to teh Joe Knight situation from anyone on the tundra was because there are no papers that cover Colgate. Maybe, though, it is the result of living in glass houses.
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(Originally posted 12:05 a.m., updated 8:04 a.m. ... though not much to update since we could not find much coverage of any of these games)

American 80, Mount Saint Mary's 60 -- There is no place like home. Especially for those American Eagles. AU finally gets a home game, after opening the season with six straight road losses.

So what if the win is only over 1-5 Mount St. Mary's. Another week or so without a win and Jeff Jones would have been ready to schedule Polytechnic. It is hard enough opening with six straight road games, let alone having to do so with a lineup full of freshmen, which is what AU has been starting.

Jordan Nichols joined fellow rookie Derrick Mercer in the starting lineup two games ago against Heorge Mason. Junior Linas Lekavicius, who was a returning starter, has lost his spot in Jones' first five. Last season Lekavicius averaged almost 25 minutes per game. The last two combined he didn't play 25 minutes. Despite starting three of the six games AU has played, Lekavicius is averaging less than 14 minutes per game.

Mercer, a true point guard, is responsible for a lot of Lekavicius' bench time. The freshman has been solid. He hit 3-of-4 from the field against MSM, finishing with 8 points, 4 assists, 1 turnover. That is right around his average scoring and assists and although he is averaing over 2 turnovers per game, his a/to ratio us still comfortably on the plus side. From a freshman, starting, on the road ssome of the places AU has been, you have to be happy with that.

A lot of Eagles were glad to shoot in their own gym for a change. Especially center Brayden Billbe, who was 8-10 from the field on a 19-point night. Andre Ingram (13 points), Arvydas Eitutavicius and reserve forward Travis Lay (each with 11) also enjoyed the home cooking.

AU owned the boards (36-24), forced 19 turnovers and shot 51 percent for the game.

Box score

AU Web site recap

Holy Cross 64, Brown 41 -- Home cooking suits the Crusaders, who have suddenly won two straight, improving the outlook during some much needed time off for finals. The Crusaders are banged up, under the weather and in need of time to heel a little. This little turnaround sends them into the break on a positive note.

Also a positive, the showing of Tim "the Big Purple Dog" Clifford, who overcame his recent battles with Mgebroff disease to put up a 21-point, 7 boards and 4 blocks night.

Otherwise the usual suspects. Simmons with 14, Hamilton had 12.

A quick Q&A: "How can you shoot 40 percent from the field and still win by 23 points?" Holy Cross' answer: By holding the opponent to under 30 (28.9 to be precose) percent.

Box score

AP story

Sacred Heart 66, Lehigh 56 -- Olivero with 30 of Lehigh's 56. Nobody else had more than 7. Jason Mgebroff (1-9) apparently has not been told there's a cure.

Box score

AP Story

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The league's Web site has the AU-Mount Saint Mary's game listed as tomorrow. The league's Web site is wrong.

Patriot League scoreboards
ESPN | CBS Sportsline | PennLive.com | Yahoo! | Mid-Majority

LEHIGH at Sacred Heart, 8 p.m.: Lehigh's last road win was Feb. 11 at Army. Since then they have dropped five straight road games. Sacred Heart snapped a four-game losing streak by beating Army the last time out.Lehigh notes | Sacred Heart Web site | USA Today matchup | Gametracker

Brown at HOLY CROSS 8 p.m.: For a Brown (1-4) scouting report, we turn to HC coach Ralph Willard:

Brown comes to Hart Wednesday night in the last game before exams. Glen Miller has a young team that plays very hard and really pushes the ball up the floor. They are not a great shooting team so they rely on their defense and motion offense to try to create baskets. Though their posts are a little undersized they are very effective. Coaches always say their opponent plays hard, but this team plays really hard. Kevin Hamilton is still not practicing and Keith's situation is ongoing. I can't ever remember looking forward to exam week but this year I really am. Maybe instead of going to PR we should look for a tournament in Lourdes.

HC notes | Brown notes | USA Today matchup | HC radio

Mt. St. Mary's at AMERICAN, 6 p.m.: Finally a home game for the 0-6 Eagles. A winnable one, too. The Mount is 1-4 with its lone win at home over Binghamton. Two common foes in non-conference play. Both AU and MSM have lost at LaSalle. Both lost to Loyola (Md.), too -- AU at Loyola, MSM at home.
AU notes | MSM notes | USA Today matchup | AU radio
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While the focus last night was understandably on Bucknell and Villanova, the Bison were not the only league team in action. Down in Easton, Lafayette broke its losing streak with an 89-81 overtime win over St. Francis (NY)the game story in the Express-Times:

(Jamaal) Hilliard went on a personal scoring spree, hitting Lafayette's final five points of the second half and first four of overtime as the Leopards evened their record -- and an old score with the Terriers -- in a thrilling non-conference battle between two teams trying to break two-game losing streaks at Kirby Sports Center.

Box score

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(Originally posted last night, Updated at 8:06 a.m.)

Here is all the raw material -- like the BOX SCORE some notes and some quotes. Go ahead, write your own story, then compaare it to what the media horde that descended wrote. You will find their versions in the next post down.

Hey, maybe you are better at this than you even know.

POST GAME QUOTES:

Jay Wright:

"They have Big East talent; Big East caliber players on that team. They come out of high school, maybe they are not Big East players. But they come into this program, they get coached, they get nurtured and now they are juniors and seniors and they are Big East caliber players. They are not beating the teams they beat without good players."

"I always felt like they could make a run at us."

On Allen Ray's key three-pointers:

"That is the advantage of having seniors. We know that Allan and randy are going to make big plays offensively . . . We just know that Allan and randy can make big plays when we need them."

In particular, on the one Ray hit with 15:56 to go, after Bucknell cut the Nova lead to 44-41:

"That three was huge. He misses that and it is a one-posession game. You get in game like that here, anything can happen."

On the crowd:

"I was sitting in (the locker room) listening to that and I remembered when I played here, that is what the place was like in Davis Gym. We used to sit in the locker room thinking 'we know we are going to win.' I was sitting here thinking 'I know they are thinking they are going to win.' It was really strange, being in that position."

On Bucknell's Chris McNaughton:

"He is outstanding. There is a good example. He is a Big East caliber player."

On Bucknell as Cinderella:

"They blew that, man. They blew it. They are not Cinderellas anymore. Theree was no problem. Our guys know how good they are. They watched that Kansas game. I talked to them aboiut it to."

"They see two teams in our league beaten on the road, they knew."

"When Abe Badmus got in a little bit of foul trouble, that had a little bit of an effect."

On Bucknell trouble getting teams to come to Lewisburg:

"You see why? We have to play them again. They have to come to our place next year. Think about it. Think about the guys -- Lee and Bettencourt are the only seniors. The kid they have, Castleberry from Baltimore, is an outstanding player. I have to deal with them next year, then we will think about (extending the series)."

"Pat Flannery played on my heartstrings, getting me to do this ... he gave me the 'it would be so nice, everybody would like to see you come back.' He didn't mention before you come back we are going to knock off about five ranked teams. He didn't throw that out."

"This is the second best place in the nation to play college ball. At one time I thought it was the first."

"You can't hear anything in here. The end of the first half, we were trying to call a play. We had no idea what we were in. This place has a great effect on the game."

BUCKNELL QUOTES:

Pat Flannery:

"They are a tough team when they get up on you. They defend the three-point line very well . . . Once they get up on you, you are really fighting uphill."

"We fought and got back into it. We had our opportunities. I don't know if we didn't have enough gas. We played a lot of minutes against a real quality opponent. It looked like we just couldn't finish."

"Ten minutes to go, we thought we had the game. Some shots didn't fall."

On Abe Badmus:

"He is a special kid with special talents. He is so fast and so quick. They really played the passing lanes very well, which is something he has not seen all the time. But when you put him one on one out front there, he is tough to keep in front. He kept us in there with his penetration and his effort."

"They were playing so hard on Kevin (Bettencourt), face guarding him on the wing. And they were playing Chris straight up in there, then coming to double team. It was opening up the floor so we just cut him loose a little more."

"When he got his third, and then his fourth foul, we thought if we could keep it there and maybe get it to the five minute mark, I could still have him for his fifth foul. But when we had to sit him, we lost a lot of our foot speed."

On Nova:

"They are dynamite. They are special, the way they play. That is really unique."

"They are really special, the way they play and the way they shoot. They made some tough shots."

"We've been the ones that have been booed all the time. We kept saying, Villanova hasn't been booed all year. We thought maybe if we could get them in a tough one. But when they get up, they are even better. When they got up in the first half, everybody was making jumpers and going."

On starting Donald Brown instead of Darren Mastropaolo:

"You try to go big on them, and they are small, you are trading threes for twos. SO you really can't, especially not in our group."

"I thought in that stretch, when we got back there, I thought we were in good shape, then they came out of a timeout and hit a three. It had gotten down to four and it pushed it back up to seven. Then we came down and missed two in a row where we had four-footers where we were getting penetration and now all of a sudden, it goes to 10."

"That is as short a bench as we have used all year. It is as short a bench as I have gone. We were just afraid. When we got down, we couldn't tempo it, so we had to keep our guns in there. Even guns who were not playing well, I had a tough time getting them out to settle them down and get them back in because there was nothing we could do defending them if we didn't keep our top guys in there. It was a lot more than we are used to. We usually get to spell them a little bit."

Abe Badmus on Nova:

"I have played against quick people all my life. That was nothing new. But these guys were just, damn, it was just a lot more quick people on the same team . . . They were very talented I was really impressed by the overall skill that they had."

Chris McNaughton:

"We were down 19 early in the game. We fought back and gave it all we had. We pulled within three, and you know you are back in the game, then they hit that tough three and that just drops you right back. It is just hard. They got up early on us and we tried to get back in the game. We just never got over the hill. It is tough against a team like that, to play from behind all the time."

Kevin Bettencourt:

"They hit some tough, tough shots. Randy Foye, he's great. In the paint he is tough to stop."

Special guest in the postgame show --- Charlie Woolum, the former Bucknell coach and the winmningest coach in BU history. Woollum won 318 games in 19 seasons here, going to the NCAA TOurnament twice.

"There's a lot of banner that we put up there," said Charlie in his James River drawl.

Woollum's brother, former Christopher Newport (D3) coach CJ Woolum, worked the game for ESPN 360.

Charlie is retired now, after closing out his coaching career at his alma mater, William and Mary. He works games on TV, mostly Colonial Athletic Association games for Comcast. That league is loaded, he says.

Woollum was impressed by his old point gurd Pat Flannery's team. "They are for real. They are very good," Woollum says.

Needless to say he was also impressed by the team coached by Jay Wright, another old Bucknell point guard.

Woollum said he expects another of his old point guards to soon get his own team. Billy Courtney, who was a first-team All-Patriot League pick in 1990-91 and 1991-92 is in his first year as an assistant at Providence after nine seasons as an assistant at George Mason.
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The Daily Item: Wildcats' guards prove too much for Bison in loss

Philly Daily News: Wildcats tame feisty Bison

The Patriot-News: NO. 4 VILLANOVA 79, BUCKNELL 60

New York Times: Battle of Pennsylvania Goes to the Wildcats

Philadelphia Inuirer: Villanova puts down ambitious Bucknell

Bucks County Courier Times: Villanova: Wildcats bounce Bison, from Jason Vegotsky's hometown paper

Also from the Courier Times: Wright proud of Bucknell's changes

Delaware County Daily Times: Ray, Foye make sure ’Nova stays focused

The Associated Press: No. 4 Villanova 79, Bucknell 60

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(What follows was edited for a spellcheck, Wed. morning, otherwise, it is as it was posted live throughout the game)

It's Tuesday night in Lewisburg and nobody will call this a sleepy little hamlet tonight. Sojk Pavilion is rocking with orange clad students. The end zone bleachers look like a Clemson game.

They are already loud. They are wired. They are a species, frankly, never seen before in the Patriot League. Think Zoo Crew at its prime, times 10. They are chanting "air ball, air ball" for missed warmups.

Ole, ole, ole, ole, oooolleeeee, ooohlee.

an internet exclusive ... Bucknell sophomore Andrew Morrison is in street clothes. An ankle injury in practice. Out a few weeks he says. Should not be a factor tonight, he has not been seeing many minutes.

We will update as often as possible. Check back.

Keep checking back.

Pre game intros -- Donald Brown to start at the four. Bucknell goes small. A better matchup for the four guard Nova lineup.

How bad do these kids want to let loose? They sang the national anthem.

Easily the most electric crowd in Bucknell memory. Way past the ESPN league finals against Holy Cross back in the Woollum era.

Did we mention today was the last day of fall classes?

Kyle is here for the big boyz. It is an "atmosphere piece."

He says to tell the Holy Cross fans hello.

15:58 first media TO

Nova 10, BU 6 McNaughton on the line for the and one after being fouled making a nice baseline move

At one point, Nova seemed ready to rev away. But up 10-4, the Cats could not expand the lead on several trips.

Bucknell seems steadied. Now if some open jumpers start to fall.

Jason Fraser 2 quick personals. Sheridan has one. Villanova, not a deep team, has five team fouls with 14:40 to play.

13:40 Nova owns the glass ... 6-1 advantage. Getting multiple shot possessions. Foye makes it 16-7 on Nova's third 3-point try of the possession ... give them enough c hanc es they will make one ... or four (for 6) so far

Nova is not missing. The Wildcats are 10-15 (6-8 on threes) at the 10:54 mark

Bucknell may have found an offenbsive spark in Abe Badmus, who just beat Lowry off the dribble for his second straight basket, ending Nova's 16-0 run and making it 22-11.

Has Bucknell weathered the storm?

Nova frosh Chris Charles has his 7-foot frame draped on McNaughton's back ... gets Nova's 7th team foul at 9:26.

McNaughton misses bonus of one-and-one but connects on a second chance after a Villanova lane violation -- V 26, B 13

8:25 McNaughton rebounds his own miss and puts it back V 26, B 15 The crowd is back.

7:45 McNaughton on the line again, fouled after grabbing the rebound when Badmus missed a layup on a 3-2 break, McNaughton suddenly a force on the offensive glass. Now has 4 rebounds 9 points and will shoot 2 here

Kyle says it was "the old rope-a-dope."

McNaughton makes the second. Bucknell on a 9-0 run.

7:24 Bucknell's 7th team foul

5:33 Nova's 10th team foul. Bettencourt on the line, makes one of two ... Nova up 32-19

Just over 5 minutes to go, Nova spread the floor four-cornerslike

4:29 Nova shooting 54.2 percent from the floor ... BU 33.3 percent

3:53 Nardi hits Nova's 6th trey of the half to make it 37-19.

If you still are wondering, yes, Nova is that good.

Charles fouls Mastropaolo ... the announcer mistakenly tries to credit the foul to Fraser, who was already on the bench with 3 personals, sending Wright's assistants scurrying to the scorers table to make sure it is right in the books.

Darren makes the first, misses the second, but Lee tips away the rebound. They get the ball to Bettencourt but he misses what could have been an adrenalin rush three.

Lee slams on the break to get Bucknell deficit to 10. Crowd is back now,

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a ballgame. Badmus coast to coast for a reverse layup and Bucknell has the game in single digits at the half, 39-31.

Nova's shooting percentage has fallen to 46.7 at the break. BU is up to 41.4. Nova has a 22-11 edge in rebounds-- 12 second chance points.

Bucknell taking good care of the ball, only three turnovers.

Most of the difference on the scoreboard is in one line on the box score -- 3-pointers made. Nova has 6, Bucknell 0.

At the half, Lafayette 39, St. Francis (NY) 36 --- score courtesy MikdMajority.com

There is a bug in Kyle's scoreboard -- games with ranked teams don't update until they are finals.

"Not that I normally mind," he says.

Bettencourt off a screen up top hits the three and goes to the line ... good ... 17:56 it's Nova 44, BU 37 and Nova just turned the ball over on an offensive foul.

Imagine this ... with 16:13 to go in the half, Jay Wright cannot wait for the TV timeout after back to back McNaughton buckets make it a 3-point game --- 44-41

It is very clear. Win or lose. Bucknell is very much for real.

15:56: At the TV timeout, BU up to 45.7 from the field for the game. Nova at 47.1

By the way, McNaughton now has 22 points, 5 rebounds

around 12:44, McNaughton dunks ... 52-45 Bucknell still hanging around

12:05 3 guys, including Ray and Foye have three personals for Nova ... could foul trouble be Nova's Achilles heel?

Helter skelter ... Bettencourt signals to settle down

Shot clock at 7 on the inbounds ... Badmus checks in .. he goes baseline, called for a charge ... his fourth with 10:49 ... what was that about Achilles heels?

10:22 Nardi his fourth
10:13 McNaughton 3-point play -- 54-48

seconds later ... another Ray three. Seems like there is always another ray three when Bucknell tries to pull closer Ray now 3-5 from the arc

9:42 Brown fouls out

Foye adds two free throws and the lead is back to 10 just that quick. Nova can score points in a hurry ... in fact, as we write this, another Ray three, a Lowry steal and layup and it is a 16-point game ... it was 9 and Bucknell closing a minute ago ... that is how fast Nova can make things happen on offense.

Nova now shooting 51.2 percent for the game, BU down at 43.2 percent

N 66, BU 50 can Bucknell make another run?

No blaming the officials. They are calling it pretty even. BU has 21 fouls, has shot 17 (made only 9), Nova 19 fouls, 13-19 at the line

We are under five minutes, Nova up 13

Foye spins, hits ... he has 27 , Nova up 72-56

Amid all the noise, one sound conspicuously absent for Bucknell .. Public address guy Greg Maresca has yet to launch into a "Lee for three" call ... Lee 0-3 from three-point range, 1-10 in the game ... just 3 points and 4 rebounds for Bucknell's senior leader

As the clock winds down under three minutes, it looks as though the early hole Nova put Bucknell in was the difference. Once Bucknell steadied itself, they played pretty even the rest of the way. But trading baskets and even play is not enough when you start out down 19 points like BU was with about 11:45 to go in the first half.

Kyle points out, Nova has one FG by someone over 6-5.

McNaughton checks out with 45.9 to go having scored 29 points, a career high ... previous mark 23 against Wisconsin in the second round last season

18.3 Bucknell empties the bench

Final: No. 4 Villanova 79, Bucknell 60

Bucknell fans stay and give team standing ovation as they leave the floor.

"Death by midgets," Kyle says.

St. Joe's leads Kansas with 30 seconds to go.

Been there, done that.

Lafayette up 2 late.

Headed to the press conference.

Post game stuff to follow later and in the morning
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Big shot in the making Kyle Whelliston, the self-proclaimed shameless sellout, took time away from his new gig with what he refers to as the "WWLIS*" to slum with those of us who do not get checks with a Bristol postmark at the Bucknell-Yale game and filed this report on his trip to Lewisburg

A few days later he donned his tin foil hat to come up with a conspiracy theory about why the Holy Cross-Fordhman game went to two overtimes.

Nice guy that he is, Kyle even posted this stuff on Mid-Majority.com, so you don't have to pay to read them.
* For those who do not speak Bristolese, WWLIS means World Wide Leader in Sports.
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Patriot League scoreboards
ESPN | CBS Sportsline | PennLive.com | Yahoo! | Mid-Majority

Villanova at BUCKNELL, 7 p.m. -- The question to ponder heading into tonight's Villanova - Bucknell game is really pretty simple: How long can Villanova continue to shoot the way it has through its first four games?

If the Wildcats have another game where they shoot the ball the way they did in the first four games, and they will beat almost anybody, almost any place. Just ask Oklahoma, who got run out of the Ski Lodge on national TV Saturday. Anybody who watched that game knows how scary good Villanova is when it is clicking on offense. The 85-74 win was by a narrower margin than Nova's 89-51win over Bucknell last season, but stylistically, there were a lot of similarities.

This is not the same Villanova team. Curtis Sumpter's knee injury has changed the dynamics. Without the 6-7 Sumpter in the lineup, Bucknell grad Jay Wright (take your pick of the obligatory Flannery and Wright have ties stories offered up by the Patriot-News and the Philly Inquirer) has gone a lot with a four-guard lineup featuring Allan Ray, Randy Foy, Mike Nardi and Kyle Lowery. Foye is 6-4, the others under 6-2. Will Sheridan (6-8) is the only starter over 6-5.

The lack of size might hurt the Wildcats down the road in Big East play, or even tonight in Lewisburg. But it didn't seem to last season when that lineup took North Carolina to the wire in the NCAA Tournament and it certainly didn't in wins over Stony Brook, Lehigh and Rider, or Saturday against then No. 5 Oklahoma. Through the first four games, Villanova has outrebounded its opponents by an average of nearly 6 per game. The lack of size doesn't seem to hurt the 'Cats defensively either. Opponents are only scoring 53 ppg against Villanova, despite the Cats generally up and down pace. The opponents are shooting only 38 percent against Nova and are averaging 17 turnovers.

Foye is a dimension that will be new, to some extent, for the Bison. A senior who shared MVP honors at the World University Games with Duke's Sheldon Williams last summer, Foye played only six minutes against Bucknell last season, leaving as a precaution after taking nasty spill en route to the rim. Foye posted 32 against Oklahoma with a remarkable 14-for-21 performance.

Equally comfortable popping the J from the top of the arc or beating people off the dribble, Foye had three treys against the Sooners, giving him 14 on the season. And here is the scary part: Foye, who shoots 46.7 percent from three-point range, is only second on the Wildcats team in both three-pointers made and three-point shooting percentage. Mike Nardi, a 6-2 junior, is shooting 48.1 percent from the arc and Allan Ray, with 15 treys, has hit one more than Foye.

Four Wildcats average in double figures. Predictably its those four guards. Foye is averaging 20.8 points, Ray 21, Nardi 13 ppg and sophomore Kyle Lowery 12.8 ppg. Combined they have scored 81 percent of Villanova's 333 points.

Sounds ominous for the Bison, but that is not necessarily the scenario that will unfold in Sojka tonight. For starters, what are the odds that Villanova is going to continue to hit nearly 12 three-pointers per game, especially on the road in a visiting team's building for the first time this season.

As good as Bucknell's guards are, they are no match, as a group, for Villanova's. At least not in terms of quickness and athleticism. Pat Flannery's likes to use Bucknell's matchup zone against teams with bigger or better athletes. If Villanova shoots well enough from the perimeter to force the Bison to play man to man, it could make for a long night.

Likewise, on offense, Bucknell needs to get open looks outside and it needs to knock those open shots down if it wants to upset the Wildcats. After his quick start in last year's game on the Main Line, Nova is well aware of how tough it is to stop Chris McNaughton if you play him straight up in man. That means Nova's guards are going to have to double down. When they do, Bucknell has to be able to make them pay.

That is easier said than done, especially against a group as quick as Villanova's backcourt quartet. They recover as well as anyone. Still, if some combination of Bettencourt, Lee, Griffin and Badmus can stroke a few long jumpers early, it will go a long way towards allowing Bucknell to stay in the game.

Staying in the game, by the way, should be near the top of the Bison's list of objectives. If they can hang with Villanova, they can beat Villanova. Bucknell has developed an end game savvy that is rare. Bucknell's 5-0 record includes four wins by 5 points or less, all on the road. Given the caliber of opposition they have faced in those games, that is extraordinary.

Simply put, Bucknell knows how to win close games. The Bison have a great deal of confidence in those situations.

Villanova has a knack for coming out and hitting a barrage of threes before the opponents have even taken off their warmups, putting teams all but away from the start. They are very capable of a shock and awe kind of start.

Bucknell will need to avoid that kind of a start, or at least to weather it and not lose composure.

Perhaps the most important part of that for BU will be remembering to play its game. Villanova would like nothing more than to turn it into a track meet. Bucknell would be happy with a halfcourt game filled with long possessions. The more time Bucknell can force Nova's guards to work through screens on defense, the less legs they will have at the other end.

Nova does not get a lot of production from its bench. How deep Wright will go in a tight game is yet to be seen. Strange as it sounds to say this about a Patriot League team facing a team ranked in the top 5 in the country, Bucknell could conceivably wear down the Wildcats if they can make this a tight, walk it up kind of game.

Can Bucknell pull this off? After what this team has done on the road last season and this, it would be foolish to rule anything out, especially on their home floor. Only a fool, though, would try to turn their mortgage payment into a week in the islands by taking the underdogs.

And have no doubt, despite being all the rage in national media circles these days, the Bison, in this one, are decided underdogs.
Bucknell notes | Villanova notes | Daily Item preview |USA Today matchup |Bucknell Radio

St. Francis (N.Y.) at LAFAYETTE 7 p.m.: A pair of undersized teams on two-game losing streaks meet in Easton. Swingman Christian Brown scores 14.4 points per game, thanks to 45.8 percent shooting from three-point land. Three other Terriers are hitting at least 40 percent from the arc.
Lafayette notes | S.F. (NY) notes | USA Today matchup | Gametracker
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(Originally posted 12:23 a.m., updated 7:41 a.m.)

NAVY 82, Howard 73: The Midshipmen (1-4) overcame 30 turnovers to pick up their first win of the season, beating winless Howard (0-4) in the first of three games yesterday in the BB&T Classic at D.C.'s MCI Center.

The Mids started the second half with a 16-0 run after trailing 38-29 at the break and led the rest of the way.

Freshman guard Clif Colbert started again in place of the injured Corey Johnson. He might be hard to get out of the lineup after leading the Mids in scoring for the second game in a row. Colbert went 5-for-12 from the field, 5-6 at the line to finish with 16 points. He also had three steals.

While Colbert has been on fire, another freshman guard started for Navy and struggled. Kaleo Kina was responsible for over a third (11) of Navy's turnovers.

Box score

Washington Post

Washington Times

George Mason 75, AMERICAN 35: You cannot spell "An Ugly game" without AU. When a team trails by 25 (37-12) at the half,ugly might not be a harsh enough adjective. The Eagles shot 23 percent and scored but 35 points while losing by 40 in the second game of the BB&T Classic tripleheader at D.C.'s MCI Center.

Andre Ingram 1-of-8, 3 points -- it was that kind of night for AU. The Eagles shot only 18.5 percent in the first half, scoring a dozen points.

Box score

Washington Post

Quinnipiac 67, COLGATE 59 : Cold shooting doomed the 'Gate. They were 7-27 (26 percent) from 3-point range, 38 percent overall. They couldn't even make free throws, going just 4-12 at the line.

Box score

New Haven Register

Sacred Heart 76, ARMY 62: Army shot better than Sacred Heart from the field, hitting more than 52 percent of its shots. But Sacred Heart went to the free throw line 26 times more than the Black Knights. The Pioneers went 29-36 at the line. Army was just 5-10. Sacred Heart shot 27 of those free throws in the second half, after holding a slim 25-24 lead at the break.

Sacred Heart also outrebounded Army 34-22, including 12 offensive boards that led to 13 second chance points.

As an aside, Jimmy Sewell appears to be back in coach Jim Crews' doghouse. The 6-11 junior, vertically challenged Army's tallest player, was all but a DNP, getting one minute of action. Sewell has started the first six games for Army. Sewell was a starter early last eason, too, then did not start in 9 of Army's last 10 games.

Box score

AP story

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Bucknell up to No. 3 in the College Insider.com Mid-Major poll. The Bison moved up from last week's No. 5 ranking, ahead of previous No. 3 Northern Iowa (now 4) and No. 4 Creighton (now 5). The Bison, with 685 points, trail No. 2 Old Dominion by just two points. Gonzaga remains atop the poll, garnering all 31 first place votes for 775 points.

The Bison finished just out of the AP Top 25 this week, coming in on top of the others receiving votes list at an unofficial No. 26.

In the USA Today/ESPN coaches poll, Bucknell is second on the others list, unofficially ranked at No. 27, just behind Syracuse, who dropped out of the top 25 but remained ahead of the Bison, who beat the Orangemen in Syracuse.
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All I want for Christmas this year is world peace and some cool new Giant Killer U. gear from the Hoop Time store. Please bring Daddy a GKU hat and a t-shirt for Uncle Frank. And for me, how about that neat GKU kids sweatshirt? They even have those cool oval shaped stickers for the back of the SUV.

I know the orange and blue color scheme means they aren't for everyone Santa. But maybe you could bring those other folks some big wins and then the Hoop Time guy will make them available in their favorite colors, too.

Hurry Santa, because if you order now, it will arrive in time for the Elves to put it under the tree Christmas Eve. And that would be perfect timing Santa, since everybody wants one to wear when they watch the game on January 2.
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From the mailbag:

Boston Frenzy
Reply-To : Boston Frenzy
Sent : Sunday, December 4, 2005 7:13 PM
To : hoop_time@hotmail.com
Subject : Neil Fingleton

We've identified this mail as junk. Please tell us if we were right or wrong by clicking Junk or Not Junk

Neil is back with us and we are trying to land 2 home games of the Frenzy at his old high school in Worcester.
Dan Savage
--bostonfrenzy

Dear Dan,

Thanks for the heads-up. Getting an e-mail from a professional basketball team, even one in a league that seems custom-made for wise-aleck, smart-ass web pundits to take pot shots at, certainly gives us the aura of legitimacy that other bloggers are sure to envy.

It would be great for the Frenzy to bring Neil back to Worcester since the folks there have not had a chance to see him play since high school. Can I have the T-shirt concession?

How about in return for helping publicize it, you dub one of the games Hoop Time Night? Have you considered the DCU Center? Not the building, but the parking lot. Some flat asphalt, a fine spring day and a couple portable hoops would give the game a real playground feel. Not that it doesn't have that feel already. No need for bleachers, let 'em bring their folding chairs like a kid's soccer game.

Maybe even a combined promotion, like ice scraper night?

Let us know --
HT
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Patriot League scoreboards
ESPN | CBS Sportsline | PennLive.com | Yahoo! | Mid-Majority

NAVY vs. Howard, 4 p.m.: Somebody gets a win when the Mids (0-4) meet the Bison (0-3) in the first game of the BB&T Classic tripleheader at the MCI Center. The game will be televised on Comcast Sports Net Mid-Atlantic.
Navy notes (pdf) | Howard Web site | USA Today matchup | Gametracker | Navy radio

AMERICAN vs. George Mason, 6 p.m.:Old Colonial Athletic Association rivals meet in game two of the BB&T Classic. Also on Comcast Sports Net Mid-Atlantic.
AU notes | OU notes | USA Today matchup | Gametracker | AU radio

ARMY at Sacred Heart 7 p.m.:The 1-5 Pioneers come in off a loss to Boston College, part of a four-game skid that includes losses to Harvard, Yale and Columbia. It will be interesting to see how Army handles being the favorite for the first time in a long time against a Division I foe..
Army notes (pdf) | Sacred Heart Web site | USA Today matchup | Gametracker

COLGATE at Quinnipiac, 7 p.m.: Raiders look to make it three wins in a row when they visit the Bobcats, who are 3-2 after defeating Cornell 55-45 in their last outing. Quinnipiac also has wins over New Hampshire and Concordia. The two losses came against Troy (OT) Fairleigh Dickinson.
Colgate notes (pdf) | Quinnipiac notes | USA Today matchup | Live Stats | 'Gate radio

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(Originally posted 12:07 a.m., updated at 8:29 a.m.)

Holy Cross 71, Fordham 63 (2OT) -- From the AP story:

Holy Cross (3-4) trailed Fordham 55-50 with 15 seconds left in regulation before Colin Cunningham hit a 3-pointer and then, after a Rams turnover, scored on a layup with three seconds left to send the game to overtime.

Remember Ralph Willard's post about Kevin Hamilton playing sparingly? He apparently meant it. Hamilton actually sat for eight minutes. Of course with two OT's that means he still played 42 minutes, 2 more than a full regulation game.

Torey Thomas was an ironman for the Crusaders, playing the entire 50 minutes. Thomas made the most of the extra time, too, finishing with a career-high 23 points, 5 assists, 5 steals and 4 rebounds. According to the HC Web site:

Thomas was then fouled driving the lane, and hit a pair of free throws to send the game to a second overtime tied at 60-60.

The second overtime session was all Thomas, as he made a three-pointer, a layup and a pair of free throws to give Holy Cross a 67-60 lead with 56 seconds remaining. Thomas added one more free throw in the closing seconds, . . .

All in all, a big win for Holy Cross, who needed something good to happen after four straight losses and a rash of health problems.

Box score

Telegram & Gazette

Cornell 57, Lehigh 53 -- Lehigh could not hold a 16-point, second-half lead. After holding Cornell to 38 percent shooting in the first half, Lehigh let the Big Red hit 52 percent from the field after the break.

Box score

AP story

Ithaca Journal

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Fordham at HOLY CROSS 2 p.m.: Is Boxman just a half-full kind of guy or rowing down a river in Egypt? Too soon to tell.

Look for clues in the 80th meeting between these two rivals who were both founding members of the Patriot League. Fordham bailed out for the supposedly greener pastures of the Atlantic Ten, but the grass on the other side of the fence is not always what it is cranked up to be.

The Crusaders have won the past five meetings, including a 53-39 win in the Bronx last season. Of course by now we know this is a very different Holy Cross team. Fordham's roster is full of familiar names from last year's matchup. The difference being that now, the five freshmen that played a lot of minutes for Fordham last season have a year of experience under their belts. The 1-5 Rams don't have many wins to show for that experience, but given the Crusaders struggles of late, it would be tough to call Fordham the underdog, even with the game being played in Worcester.

For a more complete scouting report on the Rams, we turn to Holy Cross coach Ralph Willard:

Fordham comes to the Hart Sunday at 1pm. They are another young team that has lost some close games, has good talent, and is trying to find itself. They have the best ATHLETIC big man we will face in Dunston, excellent guard play with Anderson and Stout, another good athletic rebounder in Binns at the four and a true point in K. Anderson. They are coming off a 1pt. loss to a good, undefeated Iona team, and Coach W's teams always defend very well. They will also extend the defense full court and have excellent overall team quickness. Trying to contain Dunston in the post while also defending the three (they were 10-22 vs. Iona) will mean we will have to have our young guys execute our game plan, something they have been struggling with. We will once again be without Pat D.(he is out indefinitely) and KHam did not practice so I'm not sure of his status though I do know that if he does play it will be limited minutes in short durations.

How many minutes Hamilton can contribute could be the deciding factor in this matchup of two teams searching to get on track.
HC notes | Fordham notes | USA Today matchup | HC radio

LEHIGH at Cornell 1 p.m.: Cornell (2-5) has lost three straight since beating Colgate back on Nov. 22.

From the Cornell game notes:

Cornell has shot just .323 from the floor and has averaged 44.0 points in losses to Lafayette and Quinnipiac. Cornell's two leading scorers, Adam Gore (13.0 ppg.) and Lenny Collins (12.7 ppg.) have especially struggled in those contests, combining to average just 13.0 points on 22 percent shooting (8-of-37).

While Cornell has struggled offensively, its impressive defensive numbers continue to keep the Big Red in games. Cornell is limiting foes to 61.1 points on 41 percent shooting, including 26 percent from 3-point range. Those numbers are down from 72.3 points and 48 percent shooting a season ago after seven contests.

Lehigh has had the same offensive problems, while also putting up impressive defensive numbers itself en route to its 3-4 start for fourth-year coach Billy Taylor. The Mountain Hawks have averaged just 55.9 points (Jose Olivero at 14.9 ppg. leads the team), but has kept its seven opponents to 40 percent shooting and 63.0 points.

Lehigh has yet to win on the road and hasn't beaten someone on their own floor since a Feb. 11 win at Army. To find a road win over someone with a pulse, go back almost another month to a Jan. 15 win in Annapolis.Lehigh notes | Cornell notes | USA Today matchup | Livestats
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(Originally posted Saturday afternoon, Updated at 7:33 a.m.)

Bucknell 57, DePaul 52 -- As Chris McNaughton told Lew Freedman of the Chicago Tribune:"I don't think we're talking about upsets anymore. People know how to spell Bucknell."

Bucknell survives 17 turnovers to win its fifth straight. Kevin Bettencourt leads the Bison with 16 as Bucknell shoots 51 percent from the floor. Chris McNaughton with 12 points, Charles Lee with 10.

BU holds DePaul to 38 percent from the floor. Sammy Mejia the only Blue Demon in double figures with 20.

Box score

AP story

Chicago Sun-Times

We Are DePaul.com

BlueDemonsNation.com

Colgate 62, Princeton 39 -- Raiders hold Princeton to an Army-like 11 points in the first half (or should we say an Army '04-'05 like).

Kyle Chones with an 11-point, 15-board double-double for the Raiders. His 15 rebounds were just 7 less than Princeton's entire team grabbed. Alvin Reed added 16 points for the 'Gate, which shot 51.3 percent for the game while holding Princeton to 26.3 percent in the first half, 32.6 percent for the game.

Box score

AP story

Colgate sports info recap

Trenton Times

Marist 92, Lafayette 84 -- Lafayette led 45-44 at the half, but could not hold off the Red Foxes, who used a 9-0 run midway through the second half to take control.

Five in double figures for Marist, led by Will Whittington's 25, including 6 treys. Lafayette's Pat Betley also had 25. Betley one-upped Whittington with 7 three-pointers in the loss.

Lafayette, with an undersized, guard dominated rotation, wants to get up and down this year. But Stephen Miller's story in the Morning Call points out a sort of paradox for the Leopards. They actually seem to play better when the pace is more in control, as witnessed in their wins over Cornell and Princeton.

Box score

Lafayette sports info recap

AP story

Ohio 81, American 50 -- OU hit 12 three-pointers to clobber AU. Andre Ingram and Brayden Billbe with 10 each in the loss. Sonny Troutman (18 points) led four in double figures for the Bobcats.

How anxious must Jeff Jones be to get 6-11 South Carolina transfer Paulius Joneliunas on the floor? AU was outrebounded 42-28 by Ohio. Through five games they are being outrebounded by an average of 5 boards per game.

Box score

AP story

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Patriot League scoreboards
ESPN | CBS Sportsline | PennLive.com | Yahoo! | Mid-Majority.com

BUCKNELL at DePaul 2 p.m.: The game of the day in the Patriot League pits the giant killers from Lewisburg against Big East newcomer DePaul in a game that raises the question: How long till they start placing a betting line on games involving the Bison? We ask that question not due to any interest in wagering, but rather out of curiosity about how the oddsmakers might view a game like this. Sure the Bison are getting a lot of ink and some folks who really don't know them and have never seen them are talking about them as favorites next week against Villanova. But we wonder what guys who make their living predicting the outcome of games think about Bucknell's chances against DePaul.

Despite the Bison's wins over Big East schools Pittsburgh (last season) and Syracuse (two weeks ago), it is still hard to view them as a favorite on the road against a Big East club. Even a club like DePaul, which is picked to finish 13 in the 16 team Big East.

The Blue Demons return two starters from last season's team that went 20-11 before losing in the second round of the NIT. The team's leading scorer thus far is not one of those two. Miami (Fla.) transfer Karron Clarke, a 6-6 forward, is averaging 13.3 ppg. Returning starter Sammy Mejia (10.8 ppg) is a 6-6 slasher who gets to the free throw line a lot.

DePaul is 2-2, with wins over Creighton and Northwestern and losses to Northern Illinois and Bradley, two mid majors that both lost in the first round of their conference tournaments last season, neither of which are picked to win their leagues. Does that make this look like a winnable game for the Bison? Well, yes. If they can defend DePaul without getting into the foul trouble that has plagued them in three of their four wins.

Remember the old Wendy's commercials -- where's the beef? It is on the basketball court at DePaul. The Blue Demons' roster includes three guys over 6-8 who weigh more than 250 pounds and the Demons go 10 deep. It is hard to imagine Bucknell winning this one if guys like Chris McNaughton and Darren Mastropaolo spend much of the afternoon riding the pine due to foul trouble.
Bucknell notes | DePaul notes | USA Today matchup |We re DePaul preview |Bucknell Radio

Marist at LAFAYETTE 1 p.m.: The Red Foxes are 1-1 with a close loss at Seton Hall and a lopsided win over Delaware. Through two games, Jared Jordan is Marist's leading scorer, averaging 16 ppg. Two other players, 7-footer James Smith (13.5 ppg) and Will Whittington (10.5 ppg) also average in double figures. Jordan has been the best 3-point shooter of the bunch, knocking down 5-of-12 (41.7 percent) but the fact that Whittington has jacked up 17 from the arc in two games suggests he might be just as dangerous, even though he has made just 3 so far. The 6-3 junior finished in the top five in the nation in both 3-point percentage and 3-pointers per game last season.

Defense, though, not offense, has been Marist's strong suit in its two contests. The Red Foxes are shooting just 41.2 percent as a team, but they have held opponents to 36.6 percent from the field.

In addition to Smith, Marist also starts 6-8 redshirt sophomore Ryan Stilphen, a MAAC all-rookie pick last year up front. That kind of size will pose a challenge for the guard-oriented Leopards.
Lafayette notes | Marist notes | USA Today matchup | Gametracker

Princeton at COLGATE 2 p.m.: At 1-2, these are not your father's Princeton Tigers. Princeton is 10-4 against Patriot opponents in the past six seasons and 4-1 under head coach Joe Scott. But coming off a loss at Lafayette, Princeton, whose only win came at Lehigh, should have a hard time improving to 2-1 against Patriot League teams.

The Tigers don't shoot the ball very well (41.1 percent) and have been getting hammered on the boards by a margin of 12.7 rebounds per game. Sophomore forward Noah Savage (6-5) is the only player averaging in double figures (16.7 ppg) for a team that has scored more than 50 points in only one of its three games.
Colgate notes (pdf) | Princeton notes | USA Today matchup | 'Gate radio

AMERICAN at Ohio 3:30 p.m.:Late starters, the Bobcats have played only one game, beating St. Francis (Pa.) 77-61 over a week ago (Nov. 26). The Bobcats forced 15 first half turnovers in that one, 23 for the game. But their field goal defense was suspect. St. Francis shot 48.9 percent in the loss.

That is about as much encouragement as we can offer fans of the 0-4 Eagles. OU returns four starters from the team that American beat by 9 at home last season. That same OU team went on to finish the year 21-11, losing to Florida (67-62) in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. This year they are picked to win the tough Mid-American Conference. Suffice to say Jeff Jones' squad will have its hands full this afternoon in Athens.
AU notes | OU notes | USA Today matchup | Gametracker
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(Originally posted Friday, 9:42 p.m., updated at 8:42 a.m.)

If somebody had told us Friday afternoon that the Patriot League and the Ivy League would split a pair of games tonight, we would have probably been skeptical, but we'd have been willing to admit the possibility of Navy upsetting Penn seemed, well, possible.

But Army beating previously unbeaten Columbia? Is that a pig we saw overhead?

Army 67, Columbia 66 -- From the Army Web site:

Colin Harris hit a 3-point shot at the buzzer, leading Army to a 67-66 victory over Columbia on Friday night and snapping the Lions' season-opening five-game winning streak.

Army trailed by 10 points, 48-38, with 12:56 remaining before Dan Borcherdt hit six free throws over the last 6:29 and got the ball to Harris for the winner.Army's hometown paper, the Times Herald-Record, did not bother stopping in NYC en route to Philly for today's football game. But the brief report they ran does mention something that seems significant:

Army (3-3) has already matched its win total from last season. The two wins against Division I foes doubles last season's output. The Black Knights were 0-13 on the road last season but are already 2-2.

Harris finished with 22 points, Jarell Brown added 15 and Borcherdt 10 for the Black Knights.

Somebody should have told Columbia, you need to play at least something resembling defense. And no, that does not mean hacking away when the opposition is shooting the ball.

The Black Knights shot 54.3 percent from the field, including an amazing 7-for-8 (87.5 percent) from 3-point range. When they were not knocking down shots from the floor, they were at the foul line, where they went 22-for-29 (75.9 percent).

Columbia was better from the foul line -- percentage wise anyhow-- making 90 percent of its free throws (18-of-20) and shot the ball pretty well from the floor (21-of-47, 44.7 percent). They also outrebounded Army 29-21. It didn't matter. They are no longer undefeated because they didn't D it up.

Box score

AP story

Penn 86, Navy 73 -- A career-high 31 points for Penn's Ibrahim Jaaber as the Quakers came from behind to beat the winless Midshipmen.

The key stat of the game: Penn shot 55 free throws, making 39, including 11 during a 15-2 run that gave the Quakers control after they trailed 58-56 with 13:36 to play. Those free throws were crucial given Penn's 3-for-22 shooting from the arc.

Freshman guard Clif Colbert, making his first start in place of injured Corey Johnson, had 22 points to lead Navy. Carlton Baldwin was a perfect 6-for-6 from the field (12 points) before fouling out/ The 6-8 junior only played 11 minutes. Matt Fannin also fouled out for Navy. Three other Mids finished with 4 personals,

Steve Danley had four personals for Penn. Nobody else had more than 3.

Mike Kern of the Philadelphia Daily News points out:

The Quakers were 3-for-22 from the arc, which won't get it done on most nights. But you don't shoot 55 free throws on most nights, either, compared with Navy's 20. The school record is 60, set in 1955. Penn made 39 (28 in the second half), which never hurts.

Both teams had 32 points in the paint. Navy outrebounded Penn 35-32. And the Mids only attempted 14 three-pointers (making five). None of those stats seems to indicate how the huge (35-19) disparity in fouls.

As the Talking Heads used to sing, "What's that I smell?" Since we did not see the game and have no first-hand accounts to go by until tomorrow's papers, we will assume it was only the Schuylkill. But it sure looks odd in the Box score.

It doesn't even mention the foul shots disparity in Kevin Tatum's story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, though Tatum does note:

Lange started three freshmen, a sophomore and a senior against Penn, and Navy still managed to establish that it had come to hold its own.

Remembering how Navy came on at the end of last season, and seeing how many guys Lange played in this one (12 played, 10 had at least 7 minutes), anyboy writing Navy off after an 0-4 start is shortsighted. Especially given the way the Mids traditionally get away with a lot of physical stuff in Alumni Hall that might result in 35 personal fouls called in the Palestra.

Come league play, they are going to bang out some wins at home, and even though they might come over teams with better records, they will not really be upsets.

AP story

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Looks like the guys at USA Today.com are mighty high on Bucknell. From what we read in their Roundball Roundtable, we wonder if they are also high on something else.

Check this out:

5. Sure Villanova crushed Lehigh on Sunday. But the Wildcats hoisted up 33 three-point attempts. Without Curtis Sumpter, are these the Wildcats we should come to expect this season? And if so, can they survive doing that all year?

Jeff Zillgitt: I generally don't mind taking that many three-pointers, especially if a team makes 17 of 33, like the Wildcats did against Lehigh. Though you can expect teams to play much better defense against Villanova than Lehigh did.

Eric Crawford: I don't think we can learn much from Villanova's games so far. But I do think it'll balance out against better teams, even without Sumpter.

Eric Crawford: When you can put that much pressure on teams from the outside, it can open a lot of things up offensively.

Tom O'Toole: But can they go 2-0 in the Patriot League by beating Bucknell next week?

Eric Crawford: Or will Bucknell go to 2-0 in the Big East?

Tom O'Toole: Hey, it's at Bucknell.

Jeff Zillgitt: If a team can make about 40% of its three-pointers, I'm fine with it. Tom, after that game, Bucknell will be atop the Big East standings and 'Nova will be in second place in the Patriot League.

Tim Gardner: I think Bucknell takes them at home. But for the season, the 'Cats will have to run and run and run. And when they stop running, they'll have to run some more.

They also seem to agree that Bucknell belongs in the Top 25.

They might be right, but if so, it is probably more of a lucky guess than a sign of knowing what they are talking about. Wwe would put more faith in these guys' predictions if they had even seen the Bison once this season (or last, other than maybe part of the Kansas game on TV). Or if they at least were following the story close enough to realize that Bucknell won't be 2-0 in the Big East if they beat 'Nova. They will be 2-0 if they beat Big East member DePaul tomorrow. That would make them 3-0 if they also beat Villanova.
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Now that they found the Commander In Chief trophy hidden in a dorm broom closet, the Cadets and the Mids can turn their attention to hoops tonight, before shining the spotlight on their annual gridiron classic in Philly tomorrow.

Patriot League scoreboards
ESPN | CBS Sportsline | PennLive.com | Yahoo! | Mid-Majority.com

NAVY at Penn 5 p.m.: Now this is what we call smart and creative scheduling: a Navy basketball game in Philly on the eve of the Army-Navy football game. We are not so sure about the five o'clock start, but if the Mids can get a nice turnout of alums and Midshipmen to skip happy hour for hoops, then it might make the Palestra just a little friendlier for Navy.

That would be great, because Navy will need any help it can get against the 2-0 Quakers, who are picked to win the Ivy League.

From Penn's game notes:

To say that the Quakers have had success against Patriot League teams would be an understatement; in fact, they have won 19-straight games against the Patriots, with the last loss coming January 27, 1997 at Lafayette. Since the last time Penn played Navy, Dunphy’s teams have gone a combined 30-1 against the Patriot League

Adding to the challenge, the Mids will be without point guard Corey Johnson, who is out at least two games with a knee injury.

It will be interesting to see if Penn gets caught looking ahead to Saturday's Big 5 matchup with Temple.
Navy notes (pdf) | Navy notes | USA Today matchup | Gametracker | Navy radio

ARMY at Columbia 7 p.m.: We find out tonight if Army battling UConn was a sign of UConn taking the night off or Army being vastly improved. Undefeated Columbia (5-0) is no UConn, but as the record shows, they are certainly plenty of challenge for the Black Knights.

Of course as a foul-mouthed student columnist at the Columbia Spectator points out:

Then again, it's just five games into the season. The combined record of (Columbia's)opponents? A stunning 4-15. The talent pool they've been playing against? Let's just say if they played Oak Hill Academy, I wouldn't touch the line. They went wire-to-wire against some horrendous teams.

Look for 6-8 sophomore forward John Baumann to be a real matchup problem for Army. The Lions' leading scorer and co-leading rebounder averages 15.6 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. With Baumann and 6-9 center Nwachukwu (12.6 ppg, 7.8 rpg.), Columbia's frontcourt will be tough for undersized Army to handle.

As a team, Columbia is shooting better than 50 percent and holding opponents under 39 percent. That hot shooting is not all the big men inside close to the basket. The Lions shoot over 43 percent from the arc.
Army notes (pdf) | Columbia notes | USA Today matchup | Gametracker
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From Bucknell Sports Information

LEWISBURG, Pa. – Sold-out Sojka Pavilion will be the backdrop for the first-ever ESPN360 telecast on the Bucknell campus when the Bison men’s basketball team hosts fourth-ranked Villanova on Tuesday, Dec. 6 at 7 p.m. The much-anticipated contest will be aired live on ESPN’s multi-dimensional broadband service. ESPN360 is available at www.ESPN360.com, and it can be accessed by customers of many high-speed Internet service providers.

ESPN360 leverages ESPN-branded content to deliver high-quality video, featuring exclusive and live programming, unique behind-the-scenes coverage, and in-depth analysis from ESPN commentators. ESPN 360 also offers fans access to single and multi-player video games, and the ability to customize content according to their interests.

Among the current Internet service providers carrying ESPN360 programming are Adelphia, Beld, Bend, Charter, Frontier, Grande, Knology, Mid-Hudson, MediaCom, Spencer, Municipal Utilities, Starstream Communications, SusCom, Us Cable and Verizon.

This will be the 100th live event aired on ESPN 360 in 2005, and the network will be rolling in production trucks, announcers and a production team to give the broadcast the feel of any ESPN televised event.

“I am extremely excited that many loyal Bison fans around the nation will be able to tune in to what should be an extraordinary night of basketball in Sojka Pavilion,” said Bucknell director of athletics and recreation John Hardt. “The high-speed, customizable broadband service offered by ESPN360 could be the future of televised sporting events, and it is a wonderful opportunity for Bucknell to be able to take advantage of this medium.”

“This is a truly remarkable feat to have our 100th live event of the year be the match-up of two top programs – Villanova and Bucknell,” commented Len Mead, director of new media content at ESPN. “ESPN360 sets a new standard for live events available on broadband. This year, we have produced twice as many games as we did last year and we look forward to satisfying the appetites of college basketball fans across the country.”

Both Bucknell and Villanova are experiencing renewed success on the hardwood. The Bison are coming off a 23-10 season, a Patriot League championship and their first-ever NCAA Tournament victory, a 64-63 upset of third-seeded Kansas last March. With all five starters back, Bucknell is off to a 4-0 start, including a 74-69 victory over No. 17 Syracuse on Nov. 22 in the Carrier Dome.

The Bison, who play at DePaul on Saturday, have now knocked off three top-20 teams since last January, and although they are listed just outside the top 25 in both the Associated Press (29th) and ESPN/USA TODAY Coaches’ Polls (32nd), they are receiving the most votes in school history.

Coached by 1983 Bucknell graduate Jay Wright, Villanova is playing at its highest level since winning the national championship in 1985. The Wildcats finished 24-8 last year and advanced to the NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen, where they lost a 67-66 decision to eventual national champion North Carolina.

This year, Villanova was picked as the preseason favorite in the Big East. The Wildcats are 3-0 after victories over Stony Brook, Lehigh and Rider. Villanova, which will be the highest-ranked team ever to play at Bucknell, hosts Oklahoma on Saturday at 5 p.m. on ESPN.
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We will post Bucknell's release in its entirety here, without comment for now, other than to mention that Evans and Behan were already know commitments. The third guy, Tyree, appears to be a "sleeper," an athletic kid better know for football who prefers basketball. We will try to find out more on him later. For now, though, here is the text of Bucknell's release:

BUCKNELL MEN’S BASKETBALL INKS THREE EARLY SIGNEES
Patrick Behan, Zach Evans, Stephen Tyree to Join Bison in 2006-07

LEWISBURG, Pa. – With the 2005-06 season just underway, Bucknell head men’s basketball coach Pat Flannery has announced the addition of three players who will impact the program starting in 2006-07. Patrick Behan, a 6-8 forward from Leesburg, Va., Zach Evans, a 6-5 guard from Encino, Calif., and Stephen Tyree, a 6-3 guard from The Woodlands, Texas, have all taken advantage of the NCAA’s early signing period to ink national letters of intent to enroll at Bucknell.

Behan is entering his senior campaign at Notre Dame Academy in Middleburg, Va. A year ago he averaged 15 points, seven rebounds, five assists and two steals per game for head coach Kevin Martin. He earned the Coaches’ MVP Award and was listed among the top 185 prep players by Hoop Scoop. This past July, Behan attended the prestigious ABCD camp.

“Patrick is going to be a wonderful addition to our program,” said Flannery. “He is a legitimate 6-8, can really shoot and run, and has the ability to defend aggressively both in the post and on the perimeter. He plays at a great basketball school against very tough competition.”

Evans plays for coach Bryan Cantwell at Chaminade College Prep in West Hills, Calif. An All-Mission League performer last season, Evans averaged 12.4 points, 9.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.5 steals per game. He was named the conference’s rookie of the year as a sophomore, and prior to his junior year he also attended the ABCD camp.

“Like Patrick, Zach is an extremely athletic player who has gone up against some outstanding competition in California,” commented Flannery. “Zach made a great impression on our staff when we saw him in Las Vegas this summer. He simply knows how to play the game. He can play the ‘3’ and is a long, versatile defender.”

Tyree recently concluded another very successful football season at Strake Jesuit High School in Houston, and now he will be turning his attention back to basketball for his senior year. An all-conference selection as a defensive back and wide receiver on the gridiron, Tyree also averaged 17 points, eight rebounds and six assists per game last season in basketball. He was a second-team all-district selection in basketball as both a sophomore and junior.

“The entire staff is awfully excited about Stephen’s potential,” Flannery said. “He’s been a star football player in high school, but basketball seems to be his first love. He is a tremendous athlete and an extremely bright young man who should ease right into our system.”

“Every year in recruiting we start by looking for kids who fit Bucknell’s student-athlete profile, and Zach, Patrick and Stephen are three really good ones,” said Flannery. “Coming out of the July recruiting period, these three were high priorities for us. They are gym rats who should jump right into the program both academically and athletically.”

Bucknell, the defending Patriot League champion, is off to a 4-0 start in 2005-06, with victories over Rider, No. 17 Syracuse, Yale and Niagara. The Bison travel to DePaul on Saturday afternoon.

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So far, so good: Bucknell beat writer Tom Housenick of the Daily Item has a column today that looks at Bucknell's fast start. Among Tom's observations:

Offensively, the Bison appear to be in mid-season form. Bucknell is shooting 51.2 percent from the floor as a team (44.4 percent last season), 57.6 percent in the second half.

The Bison also have dramatically improved in the turnover department. They are a plus-12 for the season in assist/turnover ratio (minus 92 last season). And they are winning the hustle battle, with a 47-31 edge in combined blocked shots and steals.

Bucknell is in a rhythm offensively and as talented as its perfect start indicates, but the Bison are winning because of their defense, especially in the second half of games.

Foes are shooting just 33.0 percent from the floor in the second half this season.

Encore, Encore: Pat Murray of the Tonawanda News was at Wednesday night's Bucknell-Niagara game. He liked the game so much, he wants to see them play again.

This was the last of a four-game series between the two teams. Murray writes

:“We only have one open date next year,” Niagara coach Joe Mihalich said after Wednesday’s loss. “Maybe we can resume it the following year.”

Oh sure it would be easy to say Mihalich wants to wait until Chris McNaughton is gone, but we doubt that is the case. More likely he, and his team, would like to get right back at BU after losing two times in as many seasons by a total of 5 points.

The two teams are not old, traditional rivals. The series dates only to 1982 and includes just 8 games since then. But if Mihalich keeps turning out the kind of teams he has had in recent years, odds are that is a game Pat Flannery would like to see on his schedule. Flannery is not one to load his non-conference slate with cupcakes.

From Murray's coulumn:

There’s a healthy respect between the two coaches for what they’ve accomplished, even if the mid-majors have trouble getting respect from the mammoth Division I institutions. As Flannery said earlier in the week: “The right people respect us, that’s what matters.”

Bucknell may not have the name recognition of some other schools on Niagara’s schedule, but the Purple Eagles won’t be facing many foes tougher than the Bison.

Two schools that have developed solid basketball programs while not sacrificing educational standards battling down to the wire on the court. It’s what college hoops should be about.

His column did not actually include bold face type. We added that to make it easier for Lehigh folks to read.

Becoming a regular: Genaro Armas of the Associated Press has unofficially made more trips to Lewisburg this year than all AP writers combined over the past 5, maybe even 10 seasons.

We're cool with that. As we have said before, there is plenty of room on the Patriot League bandwagon.

In his latest visit, Armas put together a look at Bucknell's success so far. Not much new in there, but there is a good Pat Flannery quote on the difference between this team and some he has had in other seasons:

In the past, we could play a really, really fine game and change some things in our game plan to compete with some people," Flannery said. "(Now) we are able to go and do some things that we want to do, as opposed to holding the tail and trying to hang on."

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(Originally posted Thursday night, updated at 8:07 a.m.)

Tough night for the Patriot League, with a Kevin Hamilton-less Holy Cross falling on teh road and Lafayette losing at home. Both were close games. Both still count as L's.

Siena 68, Holy Cross 63 -- You won't convince Ralph Willard that there's much good to losing for the fourth straight game after starting the season 2-0. But given the absence of reigning PL layer of the year Kevin Hamilton, this is not such a bad showing. Keith Simmons had 20 points for the Crusaders. Freshman forward Colin Cunningham added 16, a very positive sign for a team that has not gotten much offensive production out of its frontline. Cunningham also had 9 rebounds.

Alex Vander Baan, the other freshman starter at Siena, fouled out with 4 points in 31 minutes.

Torey Thomas, the Crusaders 5-11 point man had a team-high 11 boards while playing all 40 minutes (Sophomore Pat Doherty, who has been struggling with a foot injury, was a DNP). Thomas singlehandedly pulled down as many caroms as 6-8 Vander Baan (6) and 6-7 Kevin Hyland (5) combined. Thomas also had 5 steals and 5 assists, with just 1 turnover. But he also shot just 1-of-7 from the field, finishing with 5 points.

Tim Clifford, the 6-10 sophomore who was expected to be the Crusaders starting center this season, played only 5 minutes, finishing with 1 rebound and 3 turnovers while going 0-for-2 from the floor. Clifford, who showed great potential at times last season, appears to have caught whatever it is that has ailed Lehigh's Jason Mgebroff since the Mountain Hawks big man had a solid freshman season, then began a fade as a sophomore that has continued in this, his junior season.

Holy Cross outrebounded Siena 42-28 and held the Saints to 37 percent shooting from the field overall. Unfortunately, Siena shot better from outside the arc than inside, going 10-for-22 (45.5 percent) from three-point range. The Saints also had a huge edge in free throws, hitting 18-of-25 while HC only went to the line 8 times, making 6.

After the Vermont game, HC coach Ralph Willard talked about a similar disparity in that game. But it seems a pattern could be developing, which would not be surprising given the less than stellar play teh Crusaders have been getting from their big men.

You might recall Colgate's Emmitt Davis had the same complaint a lot of last season, when the Raiders had little inside game and lived and died by the jumpshooting of its guards.

Box score

Telegram&Gazette

Albany Times-Union

Times-Union sidebar

St. Peter's 79, Lafayette 76 -- Lafayette's three-game win streak ends at the hands of St. Peter's and guard Keydren Clark, the nation's leading scorer the past two seasons, who finished with a game-high 24 points.

Lafayette trailed by as many as 18 points in the second half before battling back to tie the game at 76-76 with 45 seconds to play. St. Peter's retook the lead on a pair of free throws by Raul Orta, who was fouled after getting the offensive rebound of his own miss.

At the other end, the Leopards turned the ball over on what sounds like a questionable, at best, charging call on Matt Betley.

Corky Blake of the Express-Times was there. We will let him tell the story:

After the free throws, the Leopards called a timeout. Brown received the inbounds pass and then handed to Matt Betley at the top of the foul line.

As Betley turned off the screen, Clark stepped in and flopped. Official Larry Scirotto bought the act, and called Betley for the game-ending charge.

"You don't see that call made on the road, do you?" said (St. Peter's coach Bob) Leckie with a smile

"He (Scirotto) made the call so it must've been a foul," Lafayette coach Fran O'Hanlon said in resignation.

The 'Pards still had a desperation chance to tie after St. Peter's Kevin Spann missed one of his two free throws at the other end with one second left. Marcus Harley's three-point try from the backcourt at the buzzer clanged off the backboard.

Box score

Morning Call

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(Originally posted Wednesday, 9:08 p.m., updated at 7:21 a.m.)

Bucknell 66, Niagara 63: Trailing 40-31 at the half, the Bison held Niagara to 13.6 percent (3-22) shooting in the second half while shooting 61 percent at their own end. The win broke Niagara's 18-game home win streak.

The Bison overcame the halftime deficit by holding Niagara without a field goal the first 11 minutes of the second half, outscoring the Purple Eagles 21-4 in that span.

Bucknell managed to hold off the Purple Eagles at the end, despite being without Chris McNaughton and Donald Brown, who both fouled out. The Bison's foul woes kept Niagara in the game. The Purple Eagles were 16-21 at the line in the second half, 24-32 for the game.

McNaughton played only 23 minutes due to foul problems, finishing with 12 points. Charles Lee led Bucknell with 17 points. Kevin Bettencourt also in double figures with 13 points.

The Bucknell bench outscored Niagara's reserves 15-0. Surprisingly, though, Bucknell did not go any deeper than Niagara, playing only eight guys, the fewest Pat Flannery has used all season. Freshmen Jason Vegotsky and Josh Linthicum, who each saw action in the first three games, were DNPs against Niagara.

Curiously, even with McNaughton in foul trouble, sophomore Darren Mastropaolo saw only 13 minutes of action, less than a minute of the coming in the second half. Mastropaolo had two personals in the first half, and picked up a third almost as soon as he stepped on the floor midway through the second.

Down the stretch, though, Flannery went with 6-7 Tarik Viaer-McClymont when McNaughton was in foul trouble and after he fouled out. And when Brown was in the same situation as McNaughton, Flannery went small a number of times, with 6-3 Charles Lee at the four and Abe Badmus, bettencourt and John Griffin in a three-guard backcourt.

The smaller lineup paid off on offense and defense in the second half, but it also contributed to Niagara's huge 38-25 rebounding edge. The Purple Eagles had 14 offensive boards, and a 17-2 edge in second chance points. Add those points to Niagara's 24 made free throws and you see how they stayed in the game despite their horrid shooting.

The win was Bucknell's third straight on the road and gives the Bison their first 4-0 start since 1983, when Charlie Woolum's team opened with six straight wins en route to a 24-5 season that ended with an overtime loss to Rider in the East Coast Conference finals.

Box score

Daily Item

Tonawanda News

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Patriot League scoreboards
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HOLY CROSS at Siena 7 p.m.: A good matchup for Holy Cross (2-3), whose frontline has been struggling thus far. Siena's tallest starter is 6-7 and only one other player taller than 6-4 has seen action in all three games for the Saints (1-2). Antoine Jordan, a 6-4 senior guard is the team's leading scorer (20 ppg) also the leading rebounder (7.3.rpg). Kojo Mensah, a 6-1 sophomore guard, is second in both scoring and rebounding at 16.7 ppg and 6.7 rpg. Also averaging in double figures for Siena are 6-7 junior David Ryan(13.3 ppg), a power forward with a guard's range on his jumper, and 5-9 sophomore Tay Fisher (10.7 ppg). Like Holy Cross, the "new look" Saints are not very deep, though. Only three other players have scored for Siena.

For Holy Cross, the silver lining in Monday's loss to Vermont was Keith Simmons managing to go the whole game without cramping up. On the other hand, Kevin Hamilton was running a 103-degree fever on Tuesday and was undergoing tests for bronchitis. His status is not mentioned in the Holy Cross game notes.

An interesting sidebar to tonight's game story, the HC-Siena matchup will pit high school teammates Fisher and Simmons against each other for the first time in their college careers.
HC notes | Siena Web site | Albany Times-Union Siena notebook | USA Today matchup | Live Stats | HC radio

St. Peter's at LAFAYETTE 7 p.m.: If someone had told you a week or two ago that Lafayette would be shooting for four straight wins, chances are you'd have looked into staging an intervention. Yet here they are, going for number four in a row at home against winless St. Peter's.

Hard to believe, but one of Fran O'Hanlon's biggest concerns going into this game might be the possibility of his team coming in overconfident. It is a real concern. Yes, the Peacocks are 0-4, but look at their schedule. The losses have come to No. 11 Florida, an Oakland team that was in the NCAA tournament last season, and Big East members Pittsburgh and Seton Hall.

St. Peter's is led by senior guard 5-9 Keydren Clark, the two-time national scoring leader who is averaging 20 ppg. Clark is not the only guy averaging in double figures for the Peacocks; 6-4 sophomore Raul Orta is averaging 15.3 ppg and 6-7 forward Todd Sowell is scoring 10.8 ppg and pulling down a team-high 8.3 rpg
Lafayette notes | St. Peter's Web site | USA Today matchup | Gametracker
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